Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

History and tradition are important. They are important for political parties, they are important for the remembrance of our national heroes and they are important for planning our future. I could be provocative here and talk about preselections and how the going rate for preselection seems to be about $250,000, but I will leave that for another time.

I want to talk about the remembrance of our national heroes and about planning for our future. If I asked the chamber, ‘Who is the Father of the Royal Australian Navy?’ could anyone tell me who it is?

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Brendan Nelson?

Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A silly response from the member for Fisher, but of course you would expect that. It is a man called Sir William Rooke Creswell. He came to this country in the 1850s, and he took command of the South Australian colonial ship Protector. Of course that was at the time when Australia was very fearful of being invaded by the Russians and built forts all around the coastline. Two of those forts are in my electorate—Fort Glanville and Fort Largs. One is now a historic museum and the other is a police academy.

In the period after Federation, we had naval ships here but they were under the command of the Royal Navy. William Rooke Creswell managed, against the wishes of the Royal Navy, to amalgamate those forces. He convinced the British authorities to do so, and so began the Royal Australian Navy.

You would have thought someone of that merit would be appropriately remembered in this country and you would think they would be appropriately remembered in perhaps my electorate of Port Adelaide, where he commanded that ship, the colonial ship Protector, which served in the Boxer Rebellion and in the First World War. I think it was scuttled off the coast of Queensland, and it is an absolute tragedy that that occurred. But we do not remember him. We just do not remember him.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At least he got a knighthood.

Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He did, but we do not actually remember him. That he is unknown to the overwhelming number of members of this House and to most Australians is also somewhat of a tragedy.

If I said to this chamber, ‘Who is the bravest person who ever put on an Australian naval or aircraft uniform?’ who would you say it was?

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The lad who went down firing a machine gun.

Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly: in Sattleberg in New Guinea—Lieutenant Thomas Currie Derrick. He grew up in my electorate, in Exmouth Road in Glanville in South Australia. He lived during the Depression. Like my father—he did not go with my father—in those times, when unemployment was so bad, as 14-year-olds they all got on their bikes and rode up to the Riverland. My father did the same. Derrick worked on fruit blocks, while my father went as far as Wentworth and worked on some of those old paddle steamers.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How far was that?

Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was in the 1930s.

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many kilometres away?

Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He worked on a fruit block at Berri. He came back and joined the 2nd/48th, probably the most famous battalion in World War II, and served in the Middle East. He should have been given, according to everybody, a Victoria Cross. He was not. He was given a significant award but not a Victoria Cross. He won the Victoria Cross in Sattleberg in New Guinea. In the latter part of the war, he was asked by the authorities to come home, but he wanted to be with his mates.

His nickname was ‘Diver’. Here is another man whom we remember with some nondescript street and a nondescript little park—I opened the park and there is a memorial there—yet he is the greatest military person in this country. We have not effectively remembered him. We have an infrastructure project beginning at the moment, an important one, with a battle of the bridges—open bridges over the Port River. I suggested to the community that we name the bridges the Diver Derrick bridges and give him a permanent memorial, but unfortunately that is a battle still to be won.