Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During a time when our nation was under attack from the Japanese, Papua New Guinean nationals with their local knowledge came to the assistance of Australian soldiers fighting to protect this country. When Japanese troops landed at the tiny seaside village of Buna on the north-east coast of Papua New Guinea on 21 July 1942, securing Port Moresby was considered the final hurdle for the Japanese before advancing onto Australian soil. Standing in their way was the Australian 39th Militia Battalion in the harsh conditions of the Kokoda Track. Steep ridges plunging to even deeper valleys and mosquito-infested swamps, combined with constant tropical downpours and searing heat and humidity, were just some of the conditions and obstacles faced by the Australian diggers.

In conditions foreign to Australian soldiers, our diggers had the assistance of the PNG nationals, whose local knowledge and bush skills proved invaluable in enabling the diggers to create and maintain a human supply line between the front line deep in the jungle and the base at Port Moresby. Fuzzy wuzzy angels brought food and ammunition in packs usually weighing around 20 kilos or more to the diggers up the track. On their return journey they acted as stretcher-bearers, carrying wounded diggers back to safety. Considering the critical role these PNG nationals played in helping Australia to halt the Japanese advance, it is a disappointment that our nation is yet to formally recognise the significant role of the Koiari people.

In bringing this motion before the House, may I pay tribute to the work of my colleague from that other place, Senator Barnett, who initiated this motion in the Senate to recognize the fuzzy wuzzy angels. Senator Barnett felt compelled to do so after he and a group of 17 trekkers walked the 96-kilometre track during April in honour of the Australian diggers and to raise money for juvenile diabetes research funding. It was during a recent diabetes function celebrating this trek that I was fortunate to be seated alongside Papua New Guinea’s High Commissioner to Australia, Charles W. Lepani. The High Commissioner was deeply touched by the motion.

Fears that such recognition would pave the way for compensation are not a reason to delay recognition of the role the fuzzy wuzzy angels played in assisting the Australian soldiers. Credit should be given where credit is due. To rectify the lack of formal recognition, I join with my colleagues in this place and in the Senate in calling on the Australian government to direct the new Defence Honours and Awards Tribunal to promptly determine the most appropriate form of medal or recognition for the remaining fuzzy wuzzy angels or their surviving families.

Other initiatives also need to be considered in recognition of their contribution over and above the call of duty, including making a small ex gratia payment to each fuzzy wuzzy angel and, where appropriate, funding initiatives to upgrade the health and education status of the Papua New Guinean people in villages along the Kokoda Track. The Kokoda campaign was one of the most significant for Australia during World War II. Our nation needs to recognise all those who played a role in protecting our country.

I deeply appreciate the bipartisan support of my colleagues in this motion and I thank all of them for the contribution that they will make to the debate and, once again, I think it is long overdue that we acknowledge the courage, the endurance, the mateship and the sacrifice demonstrated by Australian Defence personnel during the Kokoda battles, but also, importantly, that we recognise those fuzzy wuzzy angels who made the way just that little bit more bearable in conditions that were truly shocking.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to support the member for Pearce in this very noble motion. I would like to join with her—and I am sure others would too—if the member for Pearce would like to, to write a bipartisan letter to the parliamentary secretary to put before the Defence Honours and Awards Tribunal. I would be more than happy to support her to do that.

The Kokoda Track or Kokoda Trail campaign is infamous for a lot of reasons. First and foremost, it is infamous for the nature of the combat that took place on that stretch of Papua New Guinean soil in July and particularly August 1942. I believe up to 4,000 people lost their lives in that campaign, not to mention the many that were wounded. You only need to look at Damien Parer’s films, particularly Kokoda Frontline, just to try and appreciate for a moment the degree of difficulty of the area and the nature of the warfare that took place there. The trail itself is infamous for its physical nature. Very quickly: the track was approximately 100 miles, or 160 kilometres, long and folded into a series of ridges which rose to 7,000 feet and then declined again to 3,000 feet. It was covered in thick jungle, with short trees and tall trees tangled with vines. From looking at Parer’s pictures, I know it constantly rained and then they would be knee deep or ankle deep in mud. It is a very difficult piece of physical terrain. It is also infamous for the controversy over whether it is a trail or track. I hate to disappoint the trackers, but I think the official Australian War Memorial conclusion is that ‘trail’ appears to be the most widely used. However, most people call it the ‘bloody track’, so that is what we will use.

It is infamous for the courage, heroism and sheer effort of those who campaigned there. It is infamous for the extraordinary story of two groups in particular. The first was the 39th Battalion, which was effectively a militia force and known as the chockos. They were much maligned until Damien Parer’s films came out and showed the extraordinary effort they made as a group of young men, young militias. They basically would have just learned to clean a rifle before they got up there and faced the onslaught of a most hardened, very difficult and very courageous enemy. Then they were reinforced by the 53rd Battalion, 21st AIF Brigade and the 2nd/14th Infantry Battalion.

The other group—and this is important for the motion that the member for Pearce so eloquently put—was an equally remarkable group of Papua New Guinean people affectionately dubbed the ‘fuzzy wuzzy angels’. Again, in seeing Damien Parer’s film—and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in this area, and we should be—you really do appreciate what they did. He filmed on site and he lived the same life as the soldiers and the fuzzy wuzzy angels. The film illustrates quite clearly that for 40 wounded they used groups of eight bearers. There were four carriers and four resting—if you could call it resting—and then they took over. The persons carried were literally carried by groups of eight. You had 350 natives, fuzzy wuzzy angels, supporting the wounded as stretcher bearers. They carried heaps of equipment. They carried messages. They appeared to never complain and to be ever careful. I think this is demonstrated most poignantly—for those who would like to have a look at it—in the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels poem by Sapper ‘Bert’ Beros, who wrote in on the trail in 1942. It gives a great demonstration. What is terrific about it, too, is the mother’s reply, saying thank you to them all.

We have had ample description by people who witnessed firsthand what the fuzzy wuzzy angels did. There is plenty of literature to show you that. The most important thing is that, like the Nashos in the past and a pet of mine, Teddy Sheean—but unlike Teddy in this sense—they have not been recognised formally. It is quite extraordinary that all those to a person who partook in the campaigns said, ‘We want to recognise them; we should recognise them.’ The motion of the member for Pearce does that directly. I would like to write, with her and others here, to the parliamentary secretary, a letter to be put before the awards tribunal to ask that the fuzzy wuzzy angels get what they duly deserve—that is, our true recognition. (Time expired)

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to support the motion moved by the member for Pearce. There are many people who say that foreign forces have never invaded Australia. They would say that, when you look at all the armed conflicts we have been involved in, Australians have always fought battles away from our own territory. This is very much a post-1970s view. We should of course remember that in World War II the Japanese did in fact invade Australian territory. Most Australians may not recall that, apart from Japanese air raids which decimated parts of Darwin and northern Western Australia, as well as the sinking of HMAS Kuttabul by midget subs in Sydney, Japanese forces did actually invade Australian sovereign territory during 1942. I am of course referring to what is now known as Papua New Guinea, which was then the Australian protectorate of Papua.

One of the most critical campaigns that Australians were involved in during World War II was that fought along the Kokoda Trail, in the Owen Stanley Ranges. Stretching for over a hundred kilometres in some of the most rugged and inhospitable terrain in the world, it is traversable only by foot. This proved to be a logistical nightmare for the movement of ammunition and medical and other supplies for Australian soldiers who fought to prevent the Japanese from establishing a base at Port Moresby. The Kokoda and subsequent campaigns in New Guinea were pivotal events in our history as they represented the first time that Australian territory had actually been threatened directly by an enemy during an armed conflict. These battles formed part of the battle for Australia, fought primarily in the South Pacific. It was also the first time Australians had fought and defeated an invader on Australian soil without the direct assistance of the United Kingdom. The Kokoda campaign further complemented Australia’s emergence as a nation in its own right, as well as its military effectiveness.

With an overwhelming superiority in numbers, with 30,000-strong mostly Australian forces, they suffered approximately only 625 casualties as opposed to Japanese losses of around 6,500. Courage, mateship and sacrifice are all examples of the qualities that are part of the Anzac legend first mythologised by Charles Edward Bean during the First World War. It could also be argued, however, that these terms can also apply to the ‘fuzzy wuzzy angels’, especially the Koiari people, who carried supplies and equipment for Australian soldiers. They were often called ‘as gentle as a bush nurse’, and it is believed that not one known injured digger was ever abandoned by a fuzzy wuzzy angel.

Without the assistance of the fuzzy wuzzy angels and their invaluable knowledge of local terrain, it is questionable whether Australian forces would have been able to prevent the continued onslaught of the Japanese. Unaware of local conditions, the orders given by senior Australian commanders were largely unrealistic and impossible to implement. Armed with local knowledge, however, Australian diggers were far better equipped to defeat Japanese forces than they would otherwise have been.

One of the most iconic photographs of Australian involvement in World War II is that of the significantly wounded Australian soldier Dick Whittington being led to safety by fuzzy wuzzy angel Raphael Oimbari. The fact that this photo has been so widely—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.