Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence: I wish to make some remarks on this important day, Vietnam Veterans Day. Together with Senator Humphries, representing the Leader of the Opposition, I attended today a ceremony on Anzac Parade at the Vietnam War Memorial. It was an important occasion to reflect on the contribution made by the more than 60,000 Australians who fought in the Vietnam War. It was also an important occasion to reflect upon the more than 500 Australians who died during the Vietnam War. It was equally an important occasion to reflect upon the burden subsequently borne by the families of those who came back from Vietnam and the extraordinary challenges which they have faced now over many, many decades in dealing with the scars of war both physical and psychological. Today, therefore, was an important occasion for the nation to reflect on their service and their sacrifice.

We also today at the Vietnam War Memorial were able to reflect further on the fact that we have been able to return home the last physical remains of one of our veterans and to anticipate the return home of the last two missing in action, and we hope to appropriately commemorate that at a later point. As I reflected in my remarks at the memorial today, it is right and proper for the nation never to rest until we have exerted our every last effort to bring those who have fallen in foreign battlefields home to proper recognition or to be properly interred in our war graves abroad. These loyal and patriotic sons of Australia fought in all of our names.

There was, as we know in this place, controversy concerning the war. It divided the nation. If, however, there has been one legacy since that time, it has been that we have all learned that our men and women, and uniform, should never ever become the subject of any form of attack which should properly be constrained to the political sphere. Therefore it is important that we honour those who have served in Vietnam. It is important that we honour the return home of the physical remains of the last of our missing in action. It is important also that we reflect on the continued scars and journey to healing on the part of families and those who have survived that most terrible conflict, the Vietnam War.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence: Forty-three years ago today 108 Australians from D Company 6RAR were on patrol near the Long Tan rubber plantation when they ran headlong into an entire regiment of the Vietcong army. Through that afternoon in pelting rain, those Australian diggers fought long and hard not just to survive but also to overwhelm an enemy vastly superior in numbers. By the time darkness fell the enemy melted away, only to return later at night to clear the dead and wounded from the battlefield. Eighteen young Australians were lost in that one battle. On Vietnam Veterans Day we celebrate each year, this day, the heroism of the Battle of Long Tan and all those Australians who served during the Vietnam War. It is an opportunity to reflect also on the service and the sacrifice of those who did not come home.

Australia’s military involvement in the Vietnam War was the longest in duration of any war in our country’s history. It lasted from 1962 until 1973. Our Australian service men and women were deployed to help stop the spread of Communism throughout South-East Asia, and they served bravely. But as we remember, and as the Prime Minister noted, public opinion turned against the war. It is a matter of great regret that in the minds of some Australians for a time the controversies over the Vietnam War overshadowed the sacrifice and the service of the almost 60,000 young Australians who served proudly in Vietnam wearing our uniform under our flag. We do not ask our service men and women to serve only in conflicts that are free from controversy; we require them to serve our nation as the government of the day directs them. And any criticism for decisions taken to go to war, generally made with the benefit of hindsight, should be directed at those who made the decision, not at the young men and women who bravely and selflessly do their duty.

There is little point revisiting those arguments here today, but what we must make plain is our unreserved admiration for the Australians who went to that war. They did what the nation asked of them. They served with the same Anzac spirit, the same dedication and the same courage as the soldiers who stormed the heights of Gallipoli years ago and the soldiers who are patrolling the perilous hills of Afghanistan even as we speak here in this House today.

Today we remember all our Vietnam veterans and especially the 521 Australians who gave their lives in that conflict. We are forever in their debt.