Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I start my contribution in responding to the motion just moved by the member for Canning by making it very clear that the government's position is entirely supportive of the sentiments raised and the position espoused in the substantive motion the member for Canning seeks to bring forward today; that's an important point to make. The second point I make in relation to that is that has been made abundantly clear by the answer given by the Prime Minister in question time yesterday in relation to this issue, as well by as the speech made before question time today by the member for Spence and a number of speeches that were made by Labor senators in respect of a motion moved by Senator Lambie on Monday; that's an important thing to recognise. It's unfortunate, however, in these circumstances that this motion has been brought on with no notice to the government. But the sentiments are entirely supported.

To pick up on a point that was being made by the member for New England just now: when we look around our communities all across Australia, in mine, in the park in the centre of Armadale in Western Australia—a town that grew because of the brickworks in Armadale—and in Byford, in the member for Canning's electorate, there is a war memorial made not of stone, not of granite, but of brick. It lists the names of the people from our community for whom there are named streets, parks, suburbs, buildings and lakes. That memorial is a 'who's who' directory of our geography. That is true of every memorial around the country. It's why the official war historian for the First World War, Charles Bean, was such an advocate for the creation of the Australian War Memorial in the first place—so that those men that fought in the First World War always knew that what they fought and died for would never be forgotten, that their lives would never have been given in vain. That is true of every war memorial that has come after it. It's particularly poignant for wars that are sometimes overlooked by mainstream Australia and global history, like the Korean War. It's even more important for memorials that stand in memoriam of, dedication to and commemoration of the lives lost and the efforts made by Australians who fought in a war that was so politically contested at the time, like the Vietnam War.

The thread that runs through all these war memorials is that these are people that walked away from their families, from their loved ones, from their jobs and from their lives, put on a uniform for our nation at the direction of their government and, for many, made the ultimate sacrifice. They did it because they were committed to our values. Those are values of democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of political communication. They are the values that enable peaceful protests to occur in our country in the first place. For anybody to use that freedom to desecrate a war memorial is an abuse of the freedom we have been granted and awarded through the sacrifice that has been made by those people that have died or fought in our name. That is what makes what has occurred not just this week but a number of times now at different memorials not just in Canberra, in our nation's capital, but in other places around Australia so absolutely abhorrent.

I'm not going to refer to who those people are and I'm not going to refer to what they said, because I don't want to amplify what they are trying to message through their actions. What I seek to do is to condemn what they have done, because it cuts against the exact freedom that they are espousing and it cuts against the exact freedom they are afforded in being able to exercise those free democratic rights in every other way that they or anyone else may seek to raise their cause in this country. That is what makes what has happened here not just truly abhorrent but problematic.

In saying all of that, it confirms exactly what the member for Canning has sought to do by bringing forward this motion today and it confirms why Senator Lambie brought forward her motion at the beginning of the week. That motion was supported by the government, and the sentiments were supported by the Prime Minister in his answer in question time yesterday, in the speech made by the member for Spence, in the public comments made by the Minister for Defence on Sunday and in the comments that I have made previously in relation to these things occurring at other memorials. I think both sides of this House and many on the crossbench join together in those sentiments. It is deeply concerning to me that there was a political party in the Senate that voted against that motion on Monday. I think we all agree with that. For that reason, and certainly to avoid a repeat of that, I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

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