David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the privileges of being an Australian is the way our communities remember those who have served and have sacrificed their lives—often the best part of their lives—for their country. One of the great pleasures I had as a young subaltern in the 1st Aviation Regiment was Anzac Day, when we got to go out to the smaller country towns in south-east Queensland to lead the march and to speak and mix with the veterans. The common point was always the memorial which was in town. As you look around Australia, and particularly as I look around South Australia, you notice that there are memorials in all kinds of places. Many of these memorials capture the fact that often from one community there were many brothers or cousins from the one family, or sometimes a father and his sons, who gave their lives. The impact on those communities was large.

Often we do not realise with the passing of time how some of these memorials decay or fade or, in some cases, are even removed and a part of our history is lost. I wish to pay tribute to Will and Jacqui Clough, who are members of the Riverton RSL in the electorate of Wakefield. After seeing that there were many memorials throughout the state which people had forgotten even existed, were never visited or were not maintained, they realised that an important role could be served by recording where these memorials were and who was on the memorial so that in years to come people who were researching family or military history would have an accurate record of these tributes to people who over the years had served their country.

What they initially thought might take a matter of months or, perhaps at a stretch, even a year stretched into a three-year journey for them as they travelled literally tens of thousands of kilometres around South Australia to record some 1,000 memorials with over 3,000 photographs that detailed people from South Australia who served our nation. Jocelyn Talmage, a historical research analyst, worked with them cross-checking and making sure that there were accurate records which identified who the people were, where they enlisted and some of their service history.

Having got this information, the question is: what do you do with it? If you record it on paper or in photographs, it like many other things will be forgotten or put away in some dusty place. After some consideration and discussion with the RSL’s South Australian branch, Will and Jacqui decided that the best possible repository for this would be the internet so that people around South Australia, as well as people around Australia and around the world, could access this information and learn about those who have served their nation. So, with the support of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, the Royal Australian Air Force Association, the Royal Australian Naval Veterans Association, the Vietnam Veterans Federation and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, and with a grant from the Australian government, they were able to work with the RSL’s South Australian branch to create a website with a local provider and put this information on the internet in an extremely professional manner, such that whether you are interested in a locality or a particular person you can research and find out who from South Australia has served. This excellent website is at www.tributesofhonour.info. It is an excellent addition to the military history and the history of the communities of South Australia. I believe that Will and Jacqui and those who have worked with them to gather and provide this information deserve to be recognised and congratulated for the significant effort that they have gone to and the contribution that they have made to the history of Australia in recognising those who have served.