Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today as the shadow minister for veterans' affairs to speak about Tom Pritchard, who was one of many but the last of all the Rats of Tobruk. I think it's important to start with why Tobruk was important. Tobruk held a port. Holding that port meant that the delivery of resupplies had to come from Tripoli. Erwin Rommel, whose Afrika Korps was dominating the fight in North Africa, had a garrison of around about 12,000 or 14,000 that was holding their spot, and overwhelmingly they were Australians. If they lost it, then they wouldn't have to take the supplies from Tripoli; they could get supplies in from Tobruk. Holding it meant that Rommel had to take supplies from the Italians—they were fading a bit then—1,500 kilometres away. It was a bit like holding Brisbane and, because you hold Brisbane, the enemy having to resupply from Adelaide, so it was very important that they held out—not only from Adelaide; you'd have to be moving supplies from Adelaide across the desert. This gives you a sense of the importance of this. It was made up of the 9th Division and one from the 7th Division, and the brigades were the 20th, the 24th and the 26th. From the 7th Division it was the 15th. It talks about the period that went from 8 April to 25 October, but the final relief of the garrison didn't happen until December. I think it was the 2nd/13th Battalion that had to stay there until the final relief.

We know that during the day there was searing heat and that during the night it was freezing cold. There were real issues in trying to get fresh water up to them. There were dietary requirements. We also lost naval ships going in there. It was under siege. The Luftwaffe were bombing the naval vessels. We had Rommel in front of them and the Luftwaffe behind them, so this was really savage. It was during that period from April to October that 749 people were killed and 1,996 were injured. Of course, more were killed outside that period—it was about 832 for the whole of the process to the end of the sieges in December.

There was relief of the garrison in October, because—and I'm sure the Labor Party members are very aware of this—there was a move to make sure that we went back to the protection of Australia. That was incredibly important as well, and I think that was very wise move because our issues were closer to home, with the Japanese making their way down through the peninsula and, of course, into Papua New Guinea—Papua New Guinea being a protectorate of Australia. They were on land administered by Australia. I think it's very important we say that, because people say, 'The Japanese wouldn't have got to Australia,' but they did. They were bombing Darwin, bombing Broome and bombing Townsville, and they were on what was then the Australian protectorate of Papua New Guinea. They weren't wasting lives because there was no purpose to it. Once they got the port of Port Moresby, we were in real strife.

Why is that important? These people, after they'd finished with Tobruk, went to Papua New Guinea, and that's where Tom Pritchard went. Tom Pritchard, after he did his time as a medic in Tobruk, then had to go to Papua New Guinea. He went from the desert to the jungle. He got malaria twice. So, apart from being shot at and being bombed, he was also dealing with the afflictions of the diseases in these areas. People often lose sight of that. It's not just the enemy; it's the environment that can cause so many problems. If you've had malaria twice, it's not good for your health forevermore. It's a wonder he made it to the age he did.

What do we take from all this? The biggest thing about these people—and I think it's remarkable—is the sacrifice. Tom Pritchard put his age down wrong to go to war. I think his mates had gone off, and he wanted to be with them. His mother wasn't too happy about it, and that's often the case. My grandfather went off to war when he was 16. I've seen photos of him; he looks 16.

The issue is that these people, when they went off, had all the reasons to stay at home. They were young. They would have liked playing sport. They would have enjoyed life. They would have enjoyed time with their mates. They might have had a girlfriend, and the older ones might have had a wife. They had all the reasons to stay at home and all the reasons not to go, but they went. Why did they go? There are a range of reasons, but the core reason was that they were worried about Australia. They were worried about what would happen to our nation, and they had to do something about it. Inside their own hearts, they said, 'I'm going to do something about it; I'm going to make the sacrifice.' After they did all that, you'd think they would have come home and said: 'That'll do me. I have filled my book of service to this nation. I'm now over it.'

Tom Pritchard was a classic example. He came back and worked for the SES. He actually came back and continued on in the service for the nation. I saw that with a gentleman by the name of Gordon Phelps, to use an example, in St George every morning. He was in New Guinea as well, so it's pertinent to this. Every morning, before sunrise, he'd take his sheepdog, and he'd go down to the foreshore at St George. He'd walk on the path with a stick with a spike at the end of it and pick up the papers; he'd pick up the rubbish. I used to say to him: 'Why do you do that. You're an old man.' He would go, 'I love this country.' He would never have a go at people who dropped the papers. He just decided that he was going to get up every morning and pick them up. He was also in Rotary. When I looked at him, I just thought, 'It's just a life of service.' He offered his life and put his life on the line. Then he got home and just never stopped. That was apart from bringing up his family and looking after his grandkids. He never ever said: 'I want to get an Australia Day award' or anything like that. He said: 'It's my own business. I do it. I do it quietly and that's just the way it is.'

What Tom Pritchard and Gordon Phelps would say to us is, I believe: 'What type of people are you? Would you do it?' If the problems arose again, would people say, 'I'm off to North Africa' or 'I'm off to Papua New Guinea'? Would they do it, basically, without question? When they came home, would they just go back to work? Would they just say: 'I've done my bit. I'm back to work'? Are we as tough as them? Are we as resilient as them?

Unfortunately, circumstances have made it that—we live in a very special time, the people in this room. Your children and your grandkids are going to live in a different time because the world has changed. Totalitarianism, which Tom Pritchard was up against—the evilness of fascism and a regime that believed in destroying a race of people who were enslaved. It was not just the Jews but also the Gypsies. They believed the Slavic people were second-class citizens, and they just starved them in the prisoner of war camps. They threw them a couple of potatoes and watched the fun as they clawed over them like impoverished and famished people. This was the regime we were up against. It was bad. It was very bad; it was an evil regime.

My father was in the services during the Second World War; he got smashed up. My grandfather fought. They wouldn't even let you draw a swastika; it was just not allowed in the house. They absolutely, 100 per cent, held them in contempt. It was serious. There were certain things you were just not allowed to say in the house. What I can say about them—even about my father, who has passed away now—is that they had a real steel about them. They really disliked what they called 'malingerers', people who feigned an injury, who weren't quite perfect so therefore thought that they were afflicted. My dad was smashed up; his leg was mangled up. They just worked. They went to work and believed that your duty continued on—duty to your family and duty to your nation—and you muscled through. They would always say, ever since I was a young age—in a polite way, in a firm way and in a funny sort of quasi-compassionate way: 'You've got to suck it up, mate. Suck up your lemons and get going. Get through it.'

So the question for us when we look at Tom Pritchard, one of many but the last of all, is: have we still got that steel? Have we got it? Because we're going to need it. Do we instil that in our children and our grandchildren? Do we say to them: 'If you're really hurt, we've really got to look after you. But if you're only a little bit hurt, you've just got to deal with it. You've just got to deal with it and get through.'

We have now, again, the unfortunate rise of totalitarianism. It's there again. You've got unilateral control by a regime in the north which, once more, has incarcerated a little over a million people from the Uighur nation. It's just taking over areas.

What Tom Pritchard says to us right now—and I think it's important, on his passing—is that we have got to get that toughness back into us. We really have to, because, if we don't, we're going to lose this country. People think it'll just stay there. It won't. Read your history books. Things don't just stay there. If you're not tough enough, you lose them. So every parent has a responsibility, when their kid goes out on the soccer field, the footy field or the netball court, to say: 'You've got to muscle through this. You've got to deal with it.'

I want to give great thanks for the work of Tom Pritchard, the life of Tom Pritchard and the service of Tom Pritchard, but not just Tom alone. He was emblematic of all those 14,000 soldiers in the garrison of Tobruk and those who then went on to fight once more in Papua New Guinea, for the protection of our sacred land that we love so much. Tom makes us say, first and foremost, 'Thank you for everything you did.' It makes us respect the fact that they really didn't ask much for it. They just did it, and then they came home and went back to work. Most importantly, it says to us, if you're going to show any sort of respect for them, if you have it, the biggest thing you must never do is forget they did it. If you forget they did it, then you believe they did it for nothing, they did it for free. You believe that their life, their sacrifice, their marriages breaking up, those who were killed, those families who were decimated, those people who came back and their mind wasn't in the square it was when they went away, those careers that were just left behind, those who came back and were just lost, who died back in civilian life and ended up in an unmarked grave—you believe they did it for nothing, that we were entitled to them doing it, that we had an entitlement. We have no entitlement. We have a debt—no entitlement, a debt. That's why, for Tom Pritchard, we say, 'Thank you very much,' and, for all the others, we say, 'Lest we forget.'

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