Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in this grievance debate to join many other Australians in remembering this country’s involvement in the Vietnam War as we approach the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan. Forty years ago, in a rubber plantation about five kilometres east of Nui Dat base, Australian soldiers of D Company 6RAR struck a large company of Vietcong whilst on a patrol of the area. We are all very familiar with the history. What was to follow is remembered today as tough and heroic when in heavy rain just over 100 Australian soldiers turned away more than 2,500 Vietcong.

We know the Vietcong were hardy and experienced soldiers after years of conflict with the French forces, the South Vietnamese and later an ever-growing American force introduced by successive American administrations. But this week in 1966, 40 years ago, they were defeated in a battle that was to last just under three hours. It is a battle worthy of pride of place in Australian history, a battle which embodied the guts and determination of the original diggers—first on display on the shores of Gallipoli and later in the trenches and the fields of the Somme—fighting against the odds in a country unfamiliar to them and against a foe that had already killed some of their mates and so much of their youthful innocence. According to some, the odds of success in this battle were around 20 to one.

They were young, they were from all across Australia and they were fighting for their country in horrific and horrendous conditions. Unlike so many battles in previous conflicts, this one was a surprise where a hundred diggers literally walked into a wall of Vietcong. They were attacked with mortars and rifle and machine gun fire. When reinforcements arrived, the battle turned the way of the AIF and the Vietcong sank away into the mist and darkness of the night. Amazingly, some 250 Vietcong bodies were found in the cruel light of the following day. Australia suffered 18 casualties, with a similar number wounded, in what was a seemingly impossible battle. It would be a long night for those wounded soldiers left on the jungle floor until the morning. I particularly commend the 60 Minutes program for highlighting some of this.

Those Australians served their nation proudly, as did the 60,000 other Australians who took part directly in the war or through logistical and support roles. Over 500 young Australians gave their lives and this had a real impact on the local communities where they had grown up, where they had gone to school and where they had formed part of the local community. In my own electorate of Casey many examples of grassroots commemoration will be occurring this week to commemorate the battle, whereby the RSLs in conjunction with local community groups will remember the sacrifices of those who fought in Vietnam. I am pleased to share with the House that the communities of Monbulk and Lilydale in my electorate, to name a few, will stop this Friday with services for Vietnam veterans. All of us would agree that we should remember the Battle of Long Tan and all of the other battles of Vietnam and we will do so in this House throughout the week.

However, I think it is now also time to remember and reflect on more. For whilst our Australian servicemen represented their country with faithful respect, the same is not true of the many Australians who chose not to thank our Vietnam veterans but rather to mock them, to abuse them and to humiliate them. We must remember and deal with this. We must remember the way some Australians disgracefully and appallingly treated returning Vietnam veterans, who were callously and shamefully attacked merely for doing their duty. In the sweep of Australia’s military history, we all know that our soldiers in Vietnam performed their duties in the best traditions of all of the Anzacs before them, but we cannot avoid the unpalatable truth that they were the first generation of diggers made to feel unwelcome and ashamed in their own country. As the Prime Minister said twelve months ago:

... the entire Australian community failed the servicemen when they returned from Vietnam.

Whilst it is clearly the case that, at a collective level, the nation failed our veterans, what must also be acknowledged and should no longer be avoided is that some Australians went out of their way to attack and offend our soldiers. A veteran I know well has told of the atrocious way his fellow diggers were treated when they arrived back by ship and how he was treated in the days, months and years afterward. The stories are well known: our veterans were spat upon, they had paint thrown on them, they were pelted with eggs, they were called murderers and baby killers, and they were called all of these things by their fellow Australians—and that is what hurt the most.

In 2000, The 7.30 Report interviewed a veteran who had shared his experience upon returning to Australia. He said:

We went out for tea one night and I was holding my son and a gentleman came up to me and asked me, “How dare I hold a child after fighting in Vietnam?”

The protestors and opponents of the war had a perfect right to voice their objections, but their argument was with the government and parliamentarians of the day. I have no difficulty with their passionate opposition to the war, but I say that those who decided that abusing soldiers furthered their argument or their cause took a shameful approach and walked a despicable path. Australian soldiers did not decide to fight in Vietnam—the Australian government did. Some soldiers volunteered; many were conscripted. All of them performed the duties that were asked of them, and all of them deserve respect and gratitude for what they did for our country.

Those Australians who treated those returned service men and women appallingly will today, in most cases, be leading comfortable, middle-class lives. Not so the many veterans, who have not had the luxury of being able to simply forget the war in the same way that those who abused them have been able to move on from their actions. Those Australians know what they did, and in my view the vast majority know that what they did was wrong and that their actions contributed to the torment our veterans still feel. At an unconscious level we know this to be true, because none of those who threw the paint and hurled the hatred and abuse today proudly proclaim their actions publicly. They do not defend what they did because they know themselves that it was wrong, and because of this they conceal it today.

However, this is of little value to our veterans who experienced it and live with the memories and the nightmares every day. That is why 40 years after Long Tan and 31 years since the end of the Vietnam War is a good time for those who treated our veterans so badly to make good, to apologise, to say sorry and, importantly, to thank them for the service they gave to our nation. It is time for those whose actions added to the emotional wounds of our returned soldiers to do their bit to help heal them. It is time for them to lift the spirits of those veterans who put their lives on the line for our country and to apologise and admit not only that what they did was wrong and hurtful but that the diggers in Vietnam were brave and acting in the finest of the Anzac tradition. A private word in a veteran’s ear this week or in the weeks ahead, thanking them, would be as valuable as anything any government could say or do. This is the week to remember Long Tan and the Vietnam War, but it is also not a bad time to remember those who went beyond the realms of decency and failed to keep their objections to the war directed at the government and for them to begin to act to embrace Vietnam veterans—a group who served our nation with distinction, a group who deserve some closure of their ordeal.

In the years ahead our nation will be relying on our Vietnam veterans to carry on the Anzac tradition and keep the memories of our history alive in our local communities and RSLs. Soon they will be handed the baton of leadership from our World War II and Korean War veterans. It is in our nation’s interest that every Vietnam veteran in Australia feel their contribution is valued and appreciated. If Vietnam veterans can be assured that their role is respected and that as a nation we have resolved never to treat our returned service men and women in that way again, a great deal will have been achieved and, for many of them at least, some long overdue healing will have occurred.