Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year is a very special year for all Australians as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. Communities all over Australia came together on 25 April this year to pay tribute to and remember those who volunteered and paid the ultimate price in the Great War and all the conflicts in which we have since been involved. It is often said our national identity was formed during the Great War, and in particular in the Gallipoli Campaign. When our soldiers landed on the shores of Gallipoli, Australia was a very new nation—eager to prove itself. We showed courage, sacrifice, mateship and determination—all qualities that Australians aspire to today.

While a lot has been said about the ANZACs and many stories have been told, I want to pay tribute today to those who made it all possible—to the historians, the archivists, the storytellers; those who have dedicated their lives to making sure we never forget. There has been some remarkable documentation of our Anzac history I commend the many organisations who helped to remind us all of the past and to understand what life was like a century ago.

Clearly, the most prominent reminder is the remarkable work of the Australian War Memorial. The Australian government provided more than $28 million in funding towards the redevelopment of the First World War galleries to ensure all visitors during the Anzac Centenary could truly understand the history and traditions. Founder of the Australian War Memorial, Charles Bean said:

Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved; and here we guard the record which they themselves made.

I would also like to congratulate Brendan Nelson, Director of the Australian War Memorial, and his team for the amazing job they do week in and week out.

As the House of Representatives member on the National Archives Advisory Council I also wish to acknowledge the outstanding work they do. They too put together an extraordinary collection for Anzac Day, called 'Discovering Anzacs', which allows people to search for stories of those who served. It is no easy feat to collect, catalogue, archive and digitise these pieces of history, and the National Archives are to be congratulated for the high quality and quantity of this collection.

I also take this opportunity to mention the State Library of Queensland, who had impressive collections to mark this important event. When searching for photographs to profile on my social media pages, I was delighted to find a number of local images of our community at the time of the First World War in their collection I was particularly delighted when I found photographs of soldiers practising military drills at the Gallipoli Barracks, which is based in my electorate. The same expressions were on the faces of the young men in the photographs as those I saw when I attended the farewell for the troops heading to Iraq recently. It makes it all the more possible to imagine how the ANZAC troops were feeling.

This brings me to speak about the social media campaign that helps bring to life the people who lived during the First World War—ANZAC Live. It tells the stories of nine real people who were all involved in different aspects of the war. The authors of ANZAC Live used the diaries of these characters to create the social media profiles of a nurse, a factory worker, an explorer, an engineer, a country boy, an artist, a carpenter, a sailor and a groom. These characters are engaging with us on Facebook and Twitter, answering questions of what they are going through and how they are feeling—all in their own words as a result of these diaries. It is a remarkable way to show our nation's history and the creators, Newscorp, are to be commended for finding a way to engage with people, particularly the younger generation, in such a modern way that allows them to understand the thoughts and feelings of our ancestors

I particularly thank Senator Ronaldson, the Minister for Veteran's Affairs, and his office team for the time and effort that went into ensuring the commemorations were perfectly planned—supported, of course, by many officers in the department. I would also like to say a special thank you to his advisor, Robert Hardie, who dedicated so much time to the Centenary of Anzac project.

On a local level there are hundreds and hundreds of people who have participated in some way to make these centenary commemorations special. Firstly, I would like to thank my local Ryan Centenary of Anzac committee, who assisted with the incredibly difficult job of deciding which few of the many talented groups should receive the Centenary of Anzac grants. This committee comprised Stewart Cameron from the Kenmore-Moggill RSL Sub-Branch; Merv Brown from Gaythorne RSL;    Trevor Dixon from the National Memorial Walk and now President of .Kenmore-Moggill RSL; Ron McElwaine from the Sherwood-Indooroopilly RSL; Jeff Hilder from The Gap Pioneer and History Group;    John Pepper from the Gap RSL Sub-Branch; and Chris Austin and Kevin Alcock from the 9th Battalions Association.

The Centenary of Anzac Local Grants projects have been incredibly significant for our community in our local commemorations. These projects included a book to document and honour the 97 former Brisbane Boy's College students who lost their lives during the 1st and 2nd World Wars and Afghanistan; an upgrade to Kenmore South State School's Anzac Memorial; a Walk of Remembrance at Ferny Grove State High School; a memorial Garden at Ferny Grove State School; a memorial seat and garden at Toowong State School; an upgrade to the Contemplation Building and the installation of an eternal flame at the Gallipoli Barracks Memorial Walk; the Mates for Mates WW1 Queenslander Challenge Walk; and a book examining the lives of 86 local soldiers who were killed in World War One, produced by the Sherwood-Indooroopilly RSL Sub-Branch.

While I have just quickly listed these projects—and I am sure many other members have similar ones in their own electorates—each one of these is so special and so detailed. I look at the one for Toowong State School, which was a memorial seat designed by a local artist. In the metal of the seat are all the floral emblems from Australia and, on top of that, there are little holes where people can put poppies, which not only spell out the date of the Centenary of Anzac but also have space for a little poppy for each of the people from the Toowong district who gave their lives during the war. So much thought has gone into that. They have planted poppies that are going to flower in time for Remembrance Day and, of course, rosemary in the garden. Each of these individual projects is just so detailed and thoughtful.

Like so many families, I also have connections with the Gallipoli campaign and the Anzac commemoration. My father's cousin, after whom he was named, fought at Gallipoli and survived, only to lose his life later at the Battle of Romani. My great-grandfather, Sir George Pearce, the then Minister for Defence, actually decreed Anzac Day when he was Acting Prime Minister, although, if you read a recent book about him titled ANZAC and Empire, initially he was not very enthusiastic. I quote:

The following year, as the first anniversary of the landing approached, Pearce, now acting Prime Minister, did not regard the events of 25 April as worthy of memorialisation. For Pearce, Gallipoli was a military defeat, and he anticipated … that, as the war progressed, it would be replaced by an AIF victory, which would eventually provide Australia with a suitable national day. On 15 April 1916 he told Fisher that while 'informal celebrations are going to mark the anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli, and the day has been named "Anzac Day"', the Federal Government was not going to hold any ceremonies, in the belief that 'after the war is over it will then be more opportune than now to consider which event of the Australian Army is the more worthy of remembering'. But as 25 April approached, Pearce realised that 'Anzac Day' would be a significant day of communal mourning and remembrance of the war dead, although not a national day of the type he wished to establish, and into which Anzac Day subsequently has evolved. He recognised that the government would need to follow the public mood. It was too late to organise a Federal Government ceremony, but on 25 April Pearce took part in a tree-planting ceremony on the King's Domain in Melbourne. He released a statement that the Australian army would always have 'that inspiring example of Anzac'. On 16 May Pearce's Cabinet approved regulations to prevent use of the word 'Anzac' for commercial purposes.

That last point is very interesting. It is probably the reason that adjacent to the Indooroopilly Uniting Church in my electorate of Ryan is what I understand is the only Anzac memorial church in Australia. At a recent seminar conducted by local historian Jim Gibson, he noted that immediately after this Anzac memorial church was erected, legislation followed, meaning no other buildings could be named 'Anzac'. At the time, locals were concerned the building would be classified as illegal but the Governor-General allowed it to stay. I am sure there are many other interesting stories just like this all over Australia which have been brought to our attention through the Centenary of Anzac commemorations.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the dedicated volunteers throughout the community who have been involved in these commemorations, from the teachers, parents and children who prepared school services in their spare time to the RSLs who spent countless hours to make sure the community services went off without a hitch. On all levels, national, state and local, we as Australians have come together to make the centenary special. All of these individuals and groups have done a brilliant job, bringing to life the stories and the people who were everyday Australians 100 years ago. We are who we are because of our Anzacs and, after 100 years, it is just as important as ever to make sure we are preserving these memories. Thank you to those who make sure their stories are never forgotten.

We must always remember that Anzac commemorations are not about celebrating and glorifying war but rather highlight the tragic consequences of conflict. Lest we forget.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with others to talk a little about the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, the establishment of the Anzac tradition and the nature of how we as a nation have been seeking to commemorate those events of a century ago.

As a former Minister for Veterans Affairs, I had the privilege to represent the Australian parliament and also the Australian government on two occasions at the dawn service at Gallipoli on Anzac Day. For those who have had that opportunity it is a rare opportunity, an opportunity of a lifetime. For anyone who is considering at some stage making the pilgrimage to Gallipoli, I would certainly encourage you to do so.

It is a confronting place which highlights very much the trials and tribulations of all those who fought there 100 years ago. It is a daunting place in terms of the courage, sacrifice and carnage that took place there 100 years ago. It is also a strangely eerie place because as you look around those hills and valleys you know that the land is sown with the blood and the bodies of many, many thousands of young men, predominantly, who fought and died in that place.

They were men from nations all over the world because this was part of a world war—many, many Turks, who died defending their homeland, Australians, New Zealanders, Sri Lankans, French, English, Newfoundland, you name it. I would like to emphasise that, although this was a location where Australia was seen to come of age as a nation and the Anzac tradition was born, it is a place of significance for many countries, where soldiers of many nations fought and died.

I remember being there in 2010 when we made an announcement as a government with respect to setting up the processes for the commemoration of the Centenary of Anzac. I had discussions with, for example, former Prime Minister the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser, who recently departed, about what we should be trying to ensure we do. Of course the important thing was to ensure that we increased public awareness. He also took the view, and I agreed with him, that it was very much about education and understanding, that it ought not be about glorifying war but it ought be about understanding the courage and sacrifice of what took place there and why we should always see war as at times a necessary action but also as a last resort. It was very interesting talking to him about that, in terms of what we should seek to achieve through this process.

I think it is also about diversity. As other speakers mentioned—and I know the member for Hasluck spoke yesterday about this—Indigenous Australians were part of those forces in World War I and, frankly, in every conflict that Australia has fought. It is something which Indigenous Australians should be very proud of, what their people were able to do as part of a nation that, frankly—let's be honest—has not often been particularly embracing of their issues or of their needs. In fact, for many of them often it was actually a fight to be able to get to the fight in the first place. But then it was a fight well fought.

Migrants: this country has been based on migration, really, since European settlement. The circumstances are that when you go back to those first Anzacs, you can pick a nation and you will find people who either arrived directly from there or who were directly descended from people who were from there. People from all over the world were part of the Australian Imperial Force at that time and right the way through World War I.

When we look back at that Anzac tradition, I suppose some of us think of the 'bronzed Aussie'. Well, I do not think it is a bronzed Aussie; I think it is a whole range of different colours and circumstances. When we look at the qualities that come through from them, they are qualities that we all would like to identify with. We would like to identify—and we want to identify—with that sense of courage in the face of adversity. We want to, and can, see ourselves as a nation being proud and willing to fight for what is right. We see it as being a tradition which encompasses mateship and care and compassion for others in times of adversity. I think those are all qualities that are important. They are important in terms of how we see ourselves but also how we wish others to see us. It is important that we remember that those are the qualities that are that Anzac tradition.

And as we look through World War I, let's not forget the Western Front. Let's not forget the many thousands who died in the fields of Flanders and in northern France, because so many more died there than actually died at Gallipoli. Let's not forget that from a military perspective that tradition was the earliest stage of establishing what has been a proud tradition ever since—through World War II, through Korea and through Vietnam. The problem you always get into, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that once you start naming conflicts in the environment of veterans' affair—as I have learned!—is that if you miss any out at all you will in fact at least receive emails, and quite often suffer considerable conversations about why you have missed any particular conflict. So I have named many, but not named all. I will not name all; I do that intentionally. I do it intentionally to say this: everyone who puts on a uniform and who has served their country, regardless of the circumstances and the location, has done so in that tradition—that Anzac tradition—of which they are all rightly proud.

It is important that we remember the courage, the sacrifice and the suffering. It is important that we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. It is also very important that we remember those who came back grievously wounded, whether that be of the soul or of the body. It is also very important that we remember the suffering that occurs through war, whether it be the grief of loss or injury, then visits upon the families and friends of those who come back. Whether they be the war widows or the children of veterans, the fact is that those who have been through conflicts and suffered from conflicts are often not actually at the conflict. They suffer in the years that go on from there, and we should always remember that.

As others have said, we should not glorify war, but we should understand that there are times when it is necessary. We should understand that when it is necessary we should, as the Anzacs did, go forth and do what must be done. But we also need to understand that there are implications as you go on in the subsequent years. And so the support that we provide to veterans and to veterans' families is central to honouring that Anzac tradition.

I think that everyone who has been involved, whether they be the Department of Veterans' Affairs, various governments, ministers et cetera—the various committees that have been set up across electorates around the country—have done a very good job in that commemorative role. But I think that the most important part of the commemorative role is about educating the young about the sacrifice of those who came before them; about what those ideals mean in concrete forms with respect to the way that we should live our lives and the way in which we should conduct ourselves as a country; and that we should ensure that we honour those who gave so much in the years ahead by how we actually live to those ideals. We must remember that when the marching stops and the band ceases to play, the battle still goes on for those who have returned. It can often be difficult to deal with them—and I know that as a former Minister the Veterans' Affairs—but we should always try our best to understand them, try our best to ensure they get the assistance that they genuinely need and, through that process, honour that tradition—the tradition that dates back to that time when those young men came ashore 100 years ago.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me a great privilege and honour to stand here in this chamber to speak on this motion on the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli.

In my electorate we had five separate locations where we commemorated Anzac Day. There was Panania, organised by Gary Murray of the Panania Diggers; Woronora, organised by Barry Grant of the Woronora RSL; at Liverpool in Bigge Park, organised by David Sutherland and Kevin Wass of the Liverpool RSL; for the first time we also had a service at Menai, organised by Andrew Manson of the Menai Chamber of Commerce; and at Engadine, which was organised by the Engadine RSL, coordinated by Jack Abernethy. I congratulate them all on their fine efforts on commemorating that day.

I attended the service at Engadine in my electorate. About two years ago, behind the memorial in Engadine, a Moran health facility was constructed. It is approximately an eight-storey building. I congratulate the Moran Group because on the outside of the building they had placed a large bronze silhouette of a digger so that as the morning light came up and the first rays of sun came through you could see that silhouette standing seven storeys high. At Engadine I think we had some of the largest crowds that the township of Engadine had ever seen. The town square was absolutely chock-a-block with people shoulder to shoulder. The crowds filled back past the road and across the other side to the shops. It is hard to put an exact number on it, but it would have to have been close to 10,000 people—more than double the number of people in past years.

On that Anzac morning in Engadine, we commemorated and we remembered the 750 Australians who lost their lives on that very first day of the landings at Gallipoli. We remembered the eight long months that they continued to fight and we remembered the words of Private Victor Nicholson, who, after witnessing his mate killed at Gallipoli, wrote: 'I didn't cry unless Gallipoli was one long cry. If you cried once you never stopped. There were friends going every day and sometimes every hour of the day—wonderful friends. You cried inwardly. That is all you could do.' And we remembered that by the evacuation in December more than 8,700 Australians had lost their lives. We remembered that those who survived Gallipoli went on to the horrors of the mud, the blood and the gas of the Western Front, where another 46,000 Australians remain buried today. We remembered that by the time the guns of the Great War fell silent more than 61,000 Australians lay dead in foreign fields. We also remembered those 155,000 soldiers who returned home carrying injuries of war and that in the decade after the war, of those who were injured, another 60,000 returned soldiers died after returning from World War 1. Of course we remember the widows and the families who were left to grieve. We also remembered those immortal words, 'Lest we forget', first penned by Rudyard Kipling in the poem Recessional. Those words are a plea. They are a plea that we should never ever forget their sacrifice, their extraordinary courage and their perseverance against all odds. And, we should never forget that the very freedom we enjoy today has not come for free; it has been paid for through their blood and through their sacrifice. So it is a plea that we must be ever vigilant to protect those freedoms that were so hard won.

Millions of Australians turned out on Anzac Day morning. We said we had not forgotten, we said we will not forget and we said that for as long as our flag flies over our great southern land we never will. But in remembering them I think it is fair to ask the question, 'What if there were no Anzacs?' A former Prime Minister suggested that World War I was completely devoid of virtue. I beg to differ. One of the stories goes that we were tricked at Gallipoli by the nefarious British, who sat drinking tea on the beach while the Australians were slaughtered and sacrificed. But the facts remain that Gallipoli is not just an Australian story—there were more French killed in Gallipoli. Remember this is a time when German troops were fighting on French soil and the French were fighting for their homeland, yet France lost more people fighting at Gallipoli than Australia did. As for the nefarious British, they lost over 20,000 troops at Gallipoli compared to Australia's 8,700.

One of the other great myths is that our troops were dragooned into war by politicians or members of parliament. But that overlooks that there were something like 16 serving members of parliament at that time who left the safety of parliament and fought and served in wars. The New South Wales parliament has a plaque that commemorates the deaths of two members of that parliament who left the parliament to fight and who were killed in wars. Because our Anzac Day is not something where we celebrate war and Gallipoli was actually a defeat and a flawed campaign incompetently executed which ultimately, by itself, achieved nothing, perhaps we do not give true respect to what the Anzacs achieved.

Considering what the Anzacs achieved, I think it is important to remember why we became involved. We became involved because a militaristic Germany invaded a neutral Belgium. It is well documented in a couple of history books: The Rape of Belgium: the Untold Story of World War 1 by Larry Zuckerman; Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914 by Geoff Jeff Lipkes; and German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial by John Horne and Alan Kramer. Those books document how German forces looted and destroyed much of the countryside of Belgium, killing innocent civilians including women and children. We know from the atrocities that there were close to 6,000 innocent Belgian civilians who were killed by German troops. So the question we had back then was: should we allow the Kaiser and his armies to conquer France and Britain? Or should we stand with Britain and its dominions and take a stand against German militarism? I believe our history shows that we had no alternative but to stand and fight.

What would have happened if there had been no Anzacs? Close to home, in the Pacific theatre, if there had been no Anzacs the German colonies at the time, including German New Guinea, would have been occupied by Japan. Because of the Anzacs, Japan only occupied the colonies up to the equator. It was Australia that occupied German New Guinea and the surrounding islands. If there had been no Anzacs, as we went into 1930 with a militarist Japan, we would have had German colonies on our doorstep. How would the Battle of the Coral Sea and the battle of Kokoda have been different if Japan had been in possession of German New Guinea after the First World Year?

We can never forget the efforts of the Australian troops on the Western Front and the difference they made. Historians tell us that the Germans came very close to winning World War I, and so we should be remembering the military genius of General John Monash. The efforts of General Monash and the troops on the Western Front made a crucial difference; although they comprised just 9.5 per cent of British forces in France, they captured 18.5 per cent of the German prisoners, 21.5 per cent of all the territory gained, and 14 per cent of the guns. It was Monash's military genius that thwarted the German attacks. After the war, German commander Erich Ludendorff remembered the allies' attack in his memoirs. He said:

Our fighting machine was no longer of real value. Our capacity for year had suffered harm even if the far greater majority of our divisions fought bravely. August 8 marked the decline of our military power and took from me the hope that...we could restore the situation in our favour … The war had to be ended.

In 1921, Marshal Foch, the French general during the war, said:

… the passionate valour of the Australians served as an example to the whole world. You saved Amiens, you saved France. Our gratitude will remain ever and always to Australia.

It was British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery who said of Monash:

I would name Sir John Monash as the best general on the western front in Europe.

Our troops in World War I on the Western Front made a difference, and they could have made the difference between winning and losing. In considering the question, 'what if there were no Anzacs?' the history of the world would be quite different. At the end of World War I we could have seen the European continent dominated by a militaristic Germany, ruled by the Kaiser. We would have seen a France depleted and perhaps a France that would have followed Russia down a communist path. We would have seen Germany controlling Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and the Channel Ports. It would have been a completely different world, with the Japanese on our doorstep. What difference could this have made to our world?

One thing that history has taught us is that freedom counts. Freedom counts in many respects, because freedom allows the individual to own property, the rule of law allows entrepreneurial activity, and that is what creates the wealth. I will give a few examples of things that have happened to improve our world since World War I which may not have happened if we had not had those freedoms. If we look at infant morality, back at the time when World War I started, 70 children out of every 1,000 died within their first year of life. Today that number is down to four per 1,000. Since the start of the 21st century, four million children have been born in Australia. Over the past century, through innovation, wealth creation, better standards of health and better standards of living and prosperity, the improvement in child mortality means that there are 280,000 children alive today who would not be alive if we had the rates of infant mortality that existed at the time of World War I. If we look at maternal mortality, we have lifted that through improved living standards, improved health standards and greater wealth creation. For the four million children born in this century there would be 24,000 mothers would have died in child birth if we had not lifted those maternal rates of death. Simply: freedom counts. Our world would be a completely different place today if not for the Anzacs. We owe them a great legacy and that is something we should never, ever forget.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pride and sadness that I rise to speak on the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. As so many Australians have done already this year and last year, we are commemorating those brave Australians who went off to represent this young nation in World War I.

I would like to start by particularly acknowledging the RSLs in Moreton, who did such a fantastic job on Anzac Day in making sure that the events were well organised and also that the individuals from each area were appropriately recognised for their service. Anzac Day is always a busy day for politicians. I was not able to get to every single RSL event in Moreton but I wanted to note the RSL services in my electorate. I am only going to mention the President for each branch—obviously there was a cast of thousands staging these events. I note: Mr Des Broome, the President of the Sunnybank RSL Sub-Branch; Mr John Stachan, the President of the Stephens RSL Sub-Branch; Mr Kevin Fitzgerald, the President of the Yeronga Dutton Park RSL Sub-Branch; Mr Kevin Alcock, the President of the Sherwood Indooroopilly RSL Sub-Branch; and also Mr Tony Stevenson, the President of the Salisbury RSL Sub-Branch. As I said, I was not able to attend all the services and I even ran out of office representatives because there were so many commemorations in my electorate.

From my observations in Moreton and having been to these events for the last decade or so, there seemed to be at least double the normal crowds and sometimes nearly triple the normal crowds. People certainly turned out for the start of the centenary of commemoration. At all of the events I attended, it was great to see schools in attendance and it was great to see families and young people turning up to recognise what would be great grandfathers or great great grandparents or grandmothers who were involved in the great War, the War to end all Wars as it was called—until we had a war barely 18 or 19 years later that killed nearly triple the number.

The centenary of the Gallipoli landings has been addressed in great detail by many of the speakers before me. I have revisited the history, the competing history and the contested histories in other speeches and in other ways. I particularly note that the Sunnybank RSL in my electorate a few years ago erected a memorial to the Australian-Chinese service personnel, not just in World War I but in other events. Chinese Australians were not classed as citizens, were not able to vote but went off and gave their life for this nation.

We are also seeing the stories of Indigenous Australia who also had horrors visited upon them when they returned because they were not treated as Australian citizens and were not treated the same way when it came to handing out soldier settlements. Some of the stories are starting to emerge. I am looking forward to exploring with the Indian community in my electorate some of the stories that did not necessarily make the official histories but are stories that do exist, that are part of family histories and will be told in the years to come. I know that there were Muslim Australia that landed at Gallipoli and their stories will be told as well.

Obviously it is important that we do not to say that there was one Gallipoli story; there were many Gallipoli stories. Especially as we now look into the Turkish archives, we are getting a more complete picture of what happened. There is no doubt the courage that was on display at Gallipoli on that first day, but, obviously, there are serious questions about the planning and the decisions that were made from that day. Obviously with history we can get things perfect when we look back as to what should have happened.

Before becoming a politician, I was a lawyer but before that I was a school teacher. When I started teaching, the first play that I had to teach was The One Day of the Year by Alan Seymour, a play written in 1958. It will be familiar to many Australians. When that play was written, it was almost like the Anzac veterans got one day of the year where their courage was recognised. Here we are, 100 years on and you could not say that. In fact, the parliament dedicated money to setting up committees to make sure that their service is recognised—a great initiative and some great work done by the RSL and members of that committee in my electorate. So we cannot say these Anzacs, these diggers are only recognised one day of the year. Now their story is well and truly a part of the bigger Australian story.

I think it is important to still learn the lessons from that play, The One Day of the Yearthat is, to recognise the current ADF personnel or those that have only recently taken off the uniform. Because, as I am sure the member for Bass would attest, many of his colleagues do not necessarily end up in a comfortable position. We have seen stories in the paper of the significant numbers of homeless veterans, not just in the US but here in Australia, on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. While it is important to recognise what went on 100 years ago, I would suggest it is even more crucial that we lend a helping hand to those returned service personnel who have only recently taken off the uniform.

I know the RSLs in my electorate recognise that many of these veterans are falling through the gap. The average age of RSL members is getting older and older because they are not getting the recent veterans, the veterans from East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. We do need to do more as a nation to reach out a helping hand to those people. At Annerley when I made a speech on Anzac Day, a veteran—I will not name him—came up and said, 'Thank you for mentioning that in your speech.' He did two tours of duty to Afghanistan and he said, 'I have been written to three times by the government ever since I came back, and one of those times they misspelt my name.' I think the mood that he was voicing was that there was not a helping hand and support.

I want to touch on one other personal element in concluding this speech, and that is from my family. When I am in Canberra, I stay with my Auntie Pat, and we were talking about this the other night. She was talking about her Uncle Jim. Her Uncle Jim died in World War I, so she never met him. That was her dad's brother, so my great-uncle, who died in World War I on 20 September 1917 in Belgium: James Alphonsus Morrissy. She was still using that term this week, talking about her Uncle Jim, the man that she had never met, but her dad always spoke about the Jim that he knew. Obviously, when people die in a family, that absence is always present. I had a sibling who died before I was born as well, and they are always present, even though they are absent. To hear my aunt this week talk about her Uncle Jim reminded me of how horrible it was for so many Australians.

I have here the particulars for my great-uncle Jim Morrissy, James Alphonsus Morrissy, written in my mother's mother's handwriting. This is written by Ellen Morrissy, and that is my mum's name as well. Just looking through the writing, you can see the heartache that would have been in so many families because 52,000 did not come back, in a small nation—not to mention those who came back wounded; that is another story for another day. The absence of the 52,000 who did not come back changed the shape of Australia, I think. Every street had some heartache. Not every family but most families had someone who was affected. In fact, my great-grandmother says so here. The official form asks:

Was he—

Jim Morrissy—

connected with any other Member of the A.I.F. who died or distinguished himself. (Please state Relationship)

In her writing, she says:

Uncle returned wounded and first cusin returned limless

She misspells 'limbless'. My mum's last name is Morrissy, and that was a misspelling of Morrissey, because they were poor Irish. They knew their name but did not know how to spell it, so I joke that I am from a family of dyslexics. Here in her writing, with the same name as my mum, she talks about the aching heartache of missing her son.

People have talked about the historical significance, but I think that individual families being affected did also shape the character of this nation, particularly in a volunteer army. Admittedly, there were two referendums that were close—about politicians deciding whether or not we should be able to have conscription—but that changed the shape of Australia. I particularly mention that note from my great-grandmother Ellen Morrissy. As I said, she had the same name as my mum, who passed away four years ago today.

I commend all the previous speakers and all those that will come after in acknowledging the anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. I thank the parliament for giving us time to so do.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last month, as we do every year, we commemorated the anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. This year, the 100th anniversary, concentrated our minds most acutely on that war, on that campaign, on that bloody day. But we remembered also, as we always do, those who served and those who fell in other wars, and those who have returned, some much changed. Anzac Day has become, for Australia, the day each year when we mourn the lost and we honour those who have served, and all of those who still today serve, our nation in our armed forces. In the past few months, as we have marked the centenaries of so many milestones of that long-ago war—a war so savage and so all-consuming that it earned, for a while, the name 'the Great War'—we have all been reminded that for those who served, and for those who serve, war is not one day a year.

One hundred years ago this week, burial parties were working on the Gallipoli peninsula to inter those men who died in the Krithia valley in the battle which raged from 6 to 8 May 1915. Their graves are unknown. They are among so many of the dead of that war whose final resting place is still not known to us. Their stories, so many stories, are not complete. It has been a hundred years, but there is still more for us to learn about those men, about those battles and about that war. And, for those who are buried somewhere in that Krithia area, our responsibility to them is not yet complete. We should aim to find those final resting places and to mark them appropriately. There is still more we owe to the men who lost their lives and to the families who lived with their loss, including laying our lost to rest with honour.

One hundred years ago today, the brutal struggle on the Gallipoli peninsula was ongoing, and it would rage for many months more. The landing at Anzac Cove was Australia's first major involvement in a war which, in the following years, became known for that horrific waste of human life, for the suffering and slaughter on an industrial scale. But it was far from our last. The Gallipoli campaign was the bloodiest the world had then yet seen. The names, in English and in Turkish, of the landmarks of those battles tell the story: Hell Spit, the Ridge of Blood. In the years that followed, other names would become known for the horror and waste of war too: Verdun, Passchendaele, the Somme. But they and Gallipoli would be known too for the indomitable human spirit which can find a joke, a moment of beauty or a gesture of kindness even in such places and such times; for the poetry; for Simpson and his donkey; for the Christmas truce; and for the brief armistices on bloody battlefields to allow each side to bury and mourn their dead.

The men who served in the Dardanelles and in the campaigns that followed have become legends in the century since, striding across our national imagination, bolder and braver than soldiers of other nations, laconic larrikins. But they were not legends then; they were something far greater than legends. They were ordinary men.

They came from all around Australia. Some were born here, some born in other corners of the globe. Among them were the descendants of convicts and of currency lasses. Among them were immigrants and the children of immigrants from Scotland and Sweden, from Canada and China. And, despite the army rules designed to prevent indigenous Australians from enlisting, some among them were from our country's ancient and traditional custodians. Those Indigenous Australian Anzacs fought for a country that had little room for them and gave them little honour on their return. They fought also for the men, the mates, who were shoulder-to-shoulder with them among the shot and the shell. If their bravery and gallantry did not change the policies of government, it did change the minds of many men in the trenches with them, who saw them fighting and dying, as one white returned soldier would later write, 'like the grandest of white men'.

The Anzacs were mostly not professional soldiers. They came from city streets, from stockyards and from suburbs, and it was to them that those who survived returned, many of them with wounds visible and invisible. Every city, every suburb, every country town has its cenotaph and its list of local sons who never came home. If Gallipoli united us as a nation, it united us in grief as well as pride. If Gallipoli is a defining moment in our nation's life, it is not because the men who fought and fell were larger-than-life, mythic heroes. Their courage to charge and to stand fast was the courage of men, not of myths, and all the greater for it. Their refusal to take anything too seriously—not themselves, not their suffering and certainly not authority—was quintessentially Australian. Their tender kindnesses to each other, their loyalty and their sacrifice gave us our finest model of an ideal of mateship—those mates on the beaches, in the trenches, from all walks of life, from all around Australia and from all around the world.

Let us be inspired to not only admire them but to emulate them, to be as they were: their best selves even in the worst of times.

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Tony Abbott, acknowledging the hundredth anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. I stand in this parliament representing the electorate of Dobell, which only a couple of weeks ago turned out en masse to pay respects and honour our Anzacs. Local ceremonies witnessed record crowds as tens of thousands of locals attended dawn, morning and afternoon Anzac ceremonies. This attendance demonstrates the significance of the legend and spirit of the Anzacs.

A century ago, young Australians forged a legacy that has stood the test of time. On 25 April 1915, during the predawn hours, members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gaba Tepe, now known as Anzac Cove. This landing was part of a larger strategy to provide support to Russia against a German attack. The landing at Gallipoli was designed to block any Turkish retreat from the south, as well as reinforcements that were advancing from the north. History will remember that it was a doomed strategy. The landing quickly deteriorated into a long and terrible day. This day quickly became a week, then a month, and did not cease until the evacuation of our troops was completed on 20 December 1915. 8,141 Australians paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The Anzacs we lost joined more than 40,000 British Empire and French troops and 85,000 Turks who all paid the ultimate sacrifice. This was a horrific loss of human life, a toll that our young nation had never experienced before. In total, 417,000 men volunteered and enlisted to fight in the first Australian Imperial Force. In 1914, Australia's population was 4.9 million. Australia's casualty rate was almost 65 per cent, with more than 61,000 killed in action and a further 155,000 wounded in action.

On the Gallipoli battlefield the Anzac legend was born—a legend of courage, mateship and sacrifice. As Australians, we each remember and reflect upon the spirit of Anzac and on those who served Australia throughout the Great War.

My family remembers private Ernest Marshall Baskerville, my husband John's late great-uncle. Ernest was a farmer from Quirindi in New South Wales. On 11 December 1915, he departed Australia from Sydney on board RMS Mooltan as a member of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 9th to 12th Reinforcements.

In September 1917, Ernst was injured at the Battle of Polygon Wood in France. A month later, in October, Ernest Marshall Baskerville died of his wounds at Le Treport in the north-west of France. Ernest Marshall Baskerville's story is just one of 5,770 Australians who were killed at the Battle of Polygon Wood, and it is just one of the 61,000 stories of Australians who paid the ultimate sacrifice during World War I.

I recall visiting Ernest's grave some years ago, and as I paid my respects in the small cemetery I was touched by the ages of those whose final resting place is half a world away from home, and as a mother I grieved for the mothers who never saw their sons' final resting place. The thought of your child heading off to war and leaving behind their family, never to return, is a hard one to fathom.

The war and its consequences penetrated all corners of Australia. Private Hector Philip Crane was born and lived in Wyong. Hector was a 23-year-old labourer who took the oath to join the army on 11 May 1915. He was appointed private of the Liverpool Depot 9th Reinforcements, 13th Battalion. On 15 March 1917, Hector was wounded in action when serving his nation in France. He died of his wounds a few days later and was buried at Dernancourt Communal Cemetery in France. Hector Philip Crane was awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and qualified for the Memorial Plaque and Memorial War Roll.

On Anzac Day 100 years on from the landing at Gallipoli, the Central Coast community joined together to remember the sacrifice of those Australians before them. Services at The Entrance, Toukley, Ourimbah and Wyong saw record attendance and demonstrated the resilience of our community, who had endured a testing week, impacted by storms and floods. An estimated 10,000 people flocked to Memorial Park in The Entrance and, as the dawn broke, we remembered the sacrifice that today allows us the opportunity to live in such a welcoming community.

As I attended various services I heard inspirational stories of courage and sacrifice. The tales were shared by young and old—from school students whose great-grandfathers had landed on the shores of Gallipoli to returned servicemen who had left mates behind on the battlefields of Vietnam. The importance of the legacy of the Anzacs was appreciated by all who took the time to reflect on the good fortune of modern Australia. Services throughout Dobell saw students from many of our local schools pay their respects, thanking the Anzacs for the world they are growing up in today. I was particularly proud of the number of young students who attended local services, eager to learn more of the Anzac legend and to pay their respects.

In the week following Anzac Day I was contacted by Kerry Wellham, Principal of Brooke Avenue Public School, with a special tale of two young Australians. The story came from Len Blundell, Vice-President of the Tuggerah Lakes National Servicemen's Association. Each year Len and his wife, Gwen, hand out rosemary sprigs to those in attendance at The Entrance morning ceremony. This year Gwen was approached by two young boys—TJ McMahon and Nathan Hughes—who offered to help hand out the rosemary to those arriving at the service.

The boys said that they had also been at the dawn service and had waited at The Entrance all morning in order to attend a second service. Their willingness to attend both services illustrates their respect and interest in the history of Anzac and the significance of the commemoration. Both boys were extremely polite and are a credit to their parents and our community through their good manners and willingness to help. This story confirmed to me that the Anzac spirit is still alive and the sacrifice of the Anzacs will be remembered long past this year's centenary commemorations.

I would also like to share the story of the Redfern Aboriginal Anzac Day commemoration held each year by the Aboriginal community to honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service men and women and those who served in non-military support roles. This year the march was led by members of the Glen Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre in Dobell. The march not only recognises the original Anzacs who served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front but also commemorates more than a century of service by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service men and women. Respect is also paid to the women and other family who kept Indigenous families and communities together while loved ones were far away and after they returned.

Across our community, regardless of race, religion or background, we joined together to commemorate Anzac. For many the terror of war is incomprehensible; however, this does not prevent us as Australians from honouring those who gave their tomorrow for our today. I would like to particularly thank my local RSL sub-branches along with the Dobell Centenary of Anzac Committee, whose efforts over the past year enabled our community to unite and pay homage to the Anzacs.

Since my election I have had the great pleasure of working with local RSL sub-branches, historical societies, surf clubs and Wyong Shire Council to ensure the Dobell community is well represented and benefits through the array of commemorative activities. The Dobell Centenary of Anzac Committee considered many exceptional proposals that captured both the significance of the centenary and the importance of community involvement in the commemoration. In the lead-up to Anzac Day I had the opportunity to see these projects come to fruition, including Toukley RSL Sub-branch's commemorative plaques at local schools, commemorative medallions for local school students provided by The Entrance Long Jetty RSL Sub-branch and the Wyong Family History Group's historical banners that depict the history of locals who fought for Australia in World War I.

I congratulate members of the Soldiers Beach surf-lifesaving community who marked Anzac Day by participating in a commemorative row through the Dardanelles, around the Gallipoli Peninsula and finishing south of Anzac Cove. The boat they used was donated to the Turkish surf-lifesaving movement as a gift from the Soldiers Beach surf-lifesaving community.

Then there are the Wyong Shire Council's Centenary of Anzac flags, which are proudly flying above roads of The Entrance, Long Jetty, Toukley and Wyong and above Tuggerah Straight, and the Tuggerah Lakes marching band commemorative shirts for their performance at The Entrance morning service.

As I meet with local community groups, school students and other members of our community I am reminded of our community's determination to honour the Anzac spirit and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to provide our freedom. Our local RSL sub-branches and I were united in our determination to make the Centenary of Anzac a commemoration for all ages.

We are so fortunate here in Australia to live free of the horrors of war. We must never forget the sacrifice and loss experienced to obtain such freedom. As it is our duty and responsibility to honour and remember the Anzac spirit, it will be our children's responsibility to inspire future generations of Australians to keep the eternal flame alight and the spirit forever in our thoughts. I am extremely proud to be working with a community passionate and dedicated to ensuring the Centenary of Anzac is commemorated by all.

I would like to personally thank the members of the Dobell Anzac centenary committee for their time and assistance in ensuring our local community benefited from the best possible projects to mark the Centenary of Anzac. I would also like to thank the many members of the local organisations who volunteered their time to develop these projects on behalf of the broader community.

The characteristics and qualities of the Anzacs live on in today's Defence Force men and women who proudly serve our nation. Since my election I have had the absolute pleasure of participating in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. The program provided me with a unique opportunity to obtain a practical understanding of the workings of the Australian Defence Force. This year I travelled to the Middle East to visit troops in the UAE and Afghanistan. My visit reinforced my belief that we are truly blessed to call Australia home.

I am in awe of the professionalism, commitment and dedication of the men and women of our Defence Force. On behalf of the Dobell community and all Australians I acknowledge their commitment to ensuring we maintain our freedoms. I also acknowledge their sacrifice through being deployed and away from their families and friends and applaud them for their courage, dedication and service to Australia.

During one of our local Anzac services this year Eric Bogle's And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda was recited. One of the most moving lines from it reads:

But as year follows year, more old men disappear.

Some day no one will march there at all.

It is our duty as Australians to ensure that the sacrifice of our Anzacs and those who followed in their footsteps are remembered. We owe the success of our great nation to the Anzac spirit. We owe our freedom to the Anzac spirit. A minute silence will never be enough to pay our ultimate respect and gratitude to those who gave their tomorrow for our today. For their sacrifice we are eternally grateful. We will remember them. Lest we forget.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Anzac Centenary has been quite an extraordinary experience for this country. There is no doubt that every community needs stories. We need stories, we need legends and we need those things that bind us and create a sense of shared endeavour and a notion of us being together as we go forward. This is particularly important in an immigrant society. We are a community that has a lot of diverse history. We come together from all different parts of the world. We as Australians need to have a very strong collective identity in order for us to develop that real sense of common purpose that is going to be absolutely essential for us to make a society that is strong, good and create opportunity for all.

There is no doubt that the Anzac story and, indeed, the story of the First World War has been an important part in developing a shared story and a collective identity. I want us to think very carefully about the nature of this story. What are the true lessons and messages that we should be taking from the story? What are the messages are lessons that we can take from that that will ensure that the Anzac legend, the Anzac story and the story of the endeavour of the First World War remain truly relevant and accessible to all of the community and do not become something that has the potential to become exclusive, that this story is not told in such a way that will alienate some of the community and create a sense of division and separateness?

There have been some incredibly positive ways in which this story has been told, and I think there have been ways in which this whole endeavour has been commemorated that, in my view, have been less helpful in doing the job that needs to be done. I started my Anzac exploration, I suppose like all Australians of my vintage, growing up with a lot of stories of Simpson and his donkey, with the Anzac endeavour being very much woven into our primary school history. But it was not until I was around 13 and I discovered CEW Bean's history of the Great War at the library that I really came to have an understanding of what this war was all about. When I read Robert Graves's Good-bye to all that at the age of 15, I began to see that perhaps some of the stories that we had heard about this war may have been somewhat simplistic.

I think it is important to remember that when the horror of this war was still raw in the hearts of Australians—CEW Bean acknowledged this when speaking to veterans in 1931—most of the community wanted 'to obliterate all memory of the Great War, cut it out of their consciousness, if that were possible'. For many, many decades this was not a war to be celebrated; this was a war that had entrenched within it a great tragedy. It was a demonstration that there was perhaps somewhat of a reckless disregard for the lives of ordinary soldiers and ordinary people, a preparedness to keep a war going for a very long time without there being a true understanding of the absolute horror that was being perpetrated on those men who were fighting in the trenches, on those nurses who were there supporting them in a field hospitals and on families across Australia.

I am sure I am not the only person who is always profoundly moved when I go to a tiny town that has a war memorial. On those war memorials are so many names. These war memorials often seem to me to be, as they glitter with quartz, to be the crystallised tears of so many families, wives, girlfriends, fathers and mothers who lost their loved ones. The cataclysmic nature of a population of something less than five million losing 61,000 men, and with somewhere in excess of 110,000 men returning to their land in a damaged and injured form, is beyond our comprehension today. I do not think in all of this commemoration that we should be forgetting that.

I do not think we should be forgetting the need to critique how this war was allowed to begin but, more importantly, how this war was allowed to extend for the amount of time that it did. We should reflect on whether or not enough critique was being given at that time to the fairness and justice of perpetrating this level of chaos within these communities. I really do think it is absolutely important that we are prepared to critique this war, that this does not become a holy war.

It is essential, however, that in doing that we learn the extraordinary lessons that came from that war:

the celebration of the character of those Australians who fought in the Great War and those characteristics that they showed there, setting a standard for courage, endurance, humanity and good humour. Despite all of the horrors that they were confronted with on a daily basis, their ability to nevertheless see humour was quite extraordinary. I think these are great role models for Australians today. We do not have to praise this war and we do not have to believe that this was a war that was fundamentally fought for freedom to admire, respect and draw inspiration from the way in which those Australians conducted themselves during that war.

I know this at a very personal level, and this may sound a bit naff. During the very difficult times—my first four years of building the Perth to Mandurah rail line when it was under a lot of criticism—sometimes I used to think I cannot keep going, but I would think about those men on the Somme who stayed in those horrific circumstances year after year. My thought was that if they can do that, I can do this thing which was infinitely less hard than what they did. I say to our school students, think about this. Do not talk about this war in terms of this protecting our freedom; talk about this war in the way in which these men and women conducted themselves. Draw inspiration from that, and you can use that in your everyday life. This is not something that needs to be confined to the battlefield.

I want to also acknowledge the people involved in our community in commemorating these great events, and my Anzac committee that was made up of Peter Farrell, the president of the Highgate RSL, historian Lenore Layman and Councillor Reece Harley from the City of Perth. I think we have put together a good program; hopefully there is more to come. We have had a rebuild of the Bassendean War Memorial. We have had a fantastic play written, The Dreaming Hill, which has been performed both in Perth and in Albany.

Again, I think this has been a very important occasion. Let us hope that we do not hear talk of Christian martyrs, as unfortunately was a reference at one of our events, but rather that we see this as a story that celebrates the great Australian character, that character, as Sir John Monash, our great and distinguished general, said, that emerged from the democratic traditions that we enjoy, that emerged from the education system that encourages independence and freedom of thought. It is a really important celebration. I want to thank all of those in our community who were involved in this commemoration. Let us hope that we can make sure this is a story that will drive us forward for the next 100 years. Thank you.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very moved to speak on the centenary of Anzac. Late last year, I had the honour of laying a wreath for Australia at Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium, the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world, where there are 1,360 Australian graves, 791 of those are unidentified—those as on the inscription, 'Known only unto God.' This has the most Australian burials in the world with graves representing all but two of the 60 infantry battalions of the Australian 5th Division. Tyne Cot lies on ground captured by the Australian 3rd Division in 1917 during the Battle of Broodseinde. These are the Flanders fields, where between August and November 1917 five Australian divisions suffered 38,000 casualties—the most ever in any war. As I walked down the row upon row of crosses, I was struck by how young so many of these men were. I was given little wooden crosses to place near these gravestones which had handwritten messages on them from Australian children. What a wonderful tribute from today to those men of the past, from young children so far away in Australia showing their respect.

Beside the remnant of a German pillbox lies the grave of Captain Clarence Smith Jefferies, who received a posthumous VC for his bravery at Passchendaele. His epitaph is very eloquent. It reads: 'On fame's eternal camping ground, their silent tents are spread.' Standing amongst the headstones, it makes you feel as though this applies to every grave—their silent tents.

I also visited the Polygon Wood cemetery, the site of the Australian 5th Division memorial. This came at great cost—there are over 2,000 headstones in this cemetery. I was particularly struck by the headstone of Lieutenant Harold Roland Hill of the 25th AIF battalion, killed on 4 October 1970 at just 22. This wonderful Australian character, the strength that we acknowledge and celebrate as part of our Anzacs, had on his headstone the words of his last letter that he was due to send home to his mother. It reads: 'I'm all right, Mother, cheerio.' That is what he sent to her from that horrendous battlefield.

I also had the privilege of meeting the Menin Gate buglers, the group of volunteers who play the last post every evening at 8 pm in Ypres. They have done this since 1928—silent only during World War II. It has been played over 30,000 times. One of the buglers was a very senior gentleman, as you would expect. I said to him, 'What a huge commitment you and your wonderful group of volunteers have made, playing the last post every day.' He looked at me very seriously—I will never forget it—and said: 'The Germans were determined to destroy our nation and our people.' I will never forget this; he said: 'All we are and all we have is because of Australians' blood on our soil.' I will never forget this comment, and I would ask every Australian not to forget this comment, because each one of those young men lying in those graves had a family and friends who loved them—families who, to this day, have made a huge sacrifice, as well.

My mother was a World War II widow. Her husband was killed in New Guinea. So I understand exactly, as do my two beautiful older sisters, what that sacrifice is and why the respect shown by the Menin Gate buglers is so important to the families of those who lie in those graves. They, like my mother, probably waved their husbands and sons off on a train. For Mum, it was the girl who worked in the local post office who rode her pushbike out to the farm to tell my mother her husband had been killed. This is why Anzac Day is so important. As my sister said, they did not need Anzac Day to remember. For them, it was real every day that they did not have a father. This is why the record number of Australians at Anzac services is so important.

That is what we saw this year—like the number who attended the dawn service at Kingston Primary School. Each child in the school had made a ceramic poppy, and we had this beautiful glow from these poppies in a leaf pattern on the ground. Every child made a poppy; what respect that is. Record numbers of people attended the dawn service in Harvey. There was a beautiful, respectful silence—that is all I can call it—at the new Harvey War Memorial. Record numbers of people attended the Brunswick service. There was standing room only, with 450 people in a tiny little community hall. The same happened in Bunbury at their service. Well done to all of our RSLs and to the Australian people who came out in numbers to show their respect.

I want to acknowledge that my own grandfather fought in World War I. He came home deafened by gunfire. There was probably family after family all around Australia who had someone with this experience—people who were wounded in battle and who came home with a range of conditions they never went away with. There are those who lie in graves at Tyne Cot and Polygon Wood and in so many theatres all around the world where Australians have seen service.

This year was particularly special and I wish that my mother had been alive to see it. She had, for 60 years, been the only person in Brunswick who laid a floral tribute even when there was no service. I would drive past and see that little bunch of flowers from her garden every year. It was an extraordinary commitment and, as a result, my family gets to lay the very first wreath at Brunswick every year.

I want to finish with the Ode of Remembrance. It is so special to all of us. The poem was written by Laurence Binyon. It was first published in The Times in London in 1914. It has been recited at ceremonies since 1919. I think we all know that, but there are parts of it we may not know.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too want to join with the many voices in this parliament to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings—the Centenary of Anzac. It is incumbent on all of us in this place that we do so on behalf on the hundreds of men and women from our constituencies who left for those fateful shores, many of whom were never to return home. On behalf of the people of Ballarat and their descendants I make this speech.

Anzac Day this year marked the centenary, but centenary commemorations have occurred a lot earlier than this, with 2014 commemorating the first disembarkation and the first people enlisting. It is really important to remember that these commemorations will go on for several years to come because the war went on for several years; it was not just one day. Many who went did think it was going to be over by Christmas, but it was not. It was a war that changed the course of this world's history and the course of the personal lives of many of the people we represent.

In reflecting on the centenary commemorations I want to congratulate the many communities, large and small, across the electorate of Ballarat for the respect and the beauty with which they have commemorated this. There were schoolchildren putting poppies over the entire avenue. There is a fantastic new memorial at Navigators, and Bungaree has done the same; as has Yandoit, a very small community with very small numbers of volunteers. They have pulled together new memorials that did not exist before. They have come and restored old memorials, many of which were forgotten. They drilled for hundreds and hundreds of hours to find the stories of local men and women and to record them—not only to record them but to make sure they stay part of the commemorations for all of those communities for years to come. Ballan had a fantastic exhibition in the RSL Hall where schoolchildren were asked to reflect on what it might have been like to leave and to farewell parents, and to write letters to those parents.

It is not often when you are funding a road project that you get to commemorate such a historic event. Unfortunately, in the 1980s, when we were busily building new highways, we cut the Ballarat Avenue of Honour and left a part of the avenue forgotten for over 20 or 30 years. The funding for the Western Highway duplication, the extra $1 million—and I want to acknowledge that the member for Grayndler was very good as minister in putting this forward—has allowed us to re-open a railway crossing to reconnect the lost part of the avenue. The Avenue of Honour and the Arch of Victory that commences the Avenue of Honour in Ballarat, were paid for through fundraising by the local community, by the 'Lucas Girls'—lovely women who decided after the war that we had to have our own avenue. That that avenue stands to this day as one of the longest and most beautiful avenues of honour in the country.

I am so proud of the many events that occurred across my electorate. There was the fantastic book by Gary Snowden, a local amateur historian who literally walked for hours and hours the entire Ballarat old and new cemeteries finding graves and headstones that had any mark or connection with World War I and then researched meticulously the history of all of those men and some women. They Answered Their Country's Call is a terrific book for anyone who has ancestors in Ballarat from World War I or to start a research into whether you have an ancestor in one of the cemeteries who had a connection with Anzac. Whether it be the commemorations in Trentham and Buninyong, from Miner's Rest to Bacchus Marsh, they absolutely have done us proud, and I want to thank my community for that.

But the thing that is so important about these commemorations are the connections. It is about the connections with people, and I think the commemorations have richly delved into those histories and what it has meant for individuals. I want to share a little story about our family's connection. Our family does not know whether we have anybody in our family tree who served in World War I. That is a history of our family that we will try to rectify. But I went to a Victorian talk by former Premier Ted Baillieu, who was at that stage leading the Victorian commemorations for Anzac, and one of the projects that former Premier Baillieu talked about was a project that the ADFA school has done, which is called the AIF Project. It is a very simple project. If you Google the AIF Project and you know that you live in a house that is over 100 years old—as I do—you can enter the details of your address and see whether someone who lived in your house enlisted in World War I.

I went to this talk and I thought, 'I must do that'. I got home at about midnight and my husband and I were sitting up in bed and I got the IPad out and thought I would just Google it. It was an extraordinary feeling to suddenly see pop up our address in Ballarat with the name John Lawrence Simpson—who, to the day that I was looking at it, had enlisted in the AIF and was part of the first disembarkation from Australia. I would like to talk very briefly about John.

John lived at the house that I now call home. But, like so many of his generation, he answered the call to arms and joined the tens of thousands of Australians who now lie forever in a foreign field. He was just 22 years of age when he enlisted in the AIF on 18 August 1914, and he was among the first to enlist in Ballarat in the original 8th Battalion. Just one month later, on 19 October 1914, he sailed with the first contingent embarking from Melbourne on board Transport A24 Benalla.

Like many of those who rushed to enlist, he first saw action at Gallipoli, fighting through the entire campaign from landing to evacuation as a private, corporal and finally a sergeant. He also fought at the Ferry Post and Tel El Kebin. After surviving Gallipoli, Simpson gained a commission as an officer and went to France with the 60th Battalion. It was there that he was wounded and invalided home. The battle is known as Fromelles. In a 24-hour period across 19 and 20 July, Australian troops suffered around 5½ thousand casualties in that disastrous attempt to break the German lines—and John was there.

By any measure, John Simpson had done his bit. He had, against the odds, survived both Gallipoli and the Western Front, been wounded and then repatriated. Amazingly, he decided to re-enlist, and in July 1917 he sailed once more form Port Melbourne—this time for the last time. On 26 April 1918 he was killed at Villers-Bretonneux in France—a very important battle in the war. John was only 25 years old when he died. He was a young man who shared the corridors and the rooms of the house that my family now live in and he went to the same primary school that my son now attends. There were six young men from the street that I live in in Ballarat who enlisted—some of them on the same day as John. John served under Pompey Elliott, who was a fine Ballarat man. It was said of John:

During the preliminary advance at Villers-Bretonneux, East of Amiens, on the night of 24th/25th April 1918, this Officer rendered valuable assistance in the consolidation of the line. He then went out on patrol and rushed an enemy machine gun post containing several of the enemy. The patrol, which was under machine gun fire from two other enemy posts had two wounded and one killed This officer, and 4 men approached the position where he lay. He shot the officer and two men. At nightfall he rejoined his own lines, bringing his wounded in with him. He was 14 hours in this post under continuous machine gun fire. At a later stage in the operations this gallant officer was killed by enemy shell.

Looking at John's records, you see the incredible impact that this had on his family.

Since we learned about John, we have been trying to trace some of his family to invite them to our home, but it looks as though he does not have any surviving ancestors. The family lived in the house until the 1970s. On looking at John's war record, right up until his brother was in his late sixties he was still sending letters to the Department of Defence to find out more about John. His two sisters never married and they continued to live in our house until the 1970s. You can see the extraordinary impact that this would have had on the family.

So I want to encourage everybody who lives in a house or on land that is over 100 years old to look up the AIF Project, because it is those connections to the real men and women who left from our neighbourhoods and suburbs, who walked the hallways and lived in the homes that we live in, that will mean that we will forever remember the sacrifice that they made.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her interesting contribution and give the call to the member for Murray.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege and an honour to be able to speak in this great parliament of Australia on the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. We would not have the democracy that we have today if it had not been for the extraordinary valour and sacrifice of our serving men and women through the wars that we have engaged in since the turn of the 20th century.

I have to say that in my electorate I am extraordinarily proud of this year's work—and it will go on for several years to come—in remembering those who enlisted in the First World War. We are a rural, regional community, so we had a bigger proportion of men, and some women as nurses, volunteering compared to urban areas. There were, in fact, seven Victoria Cross awardees from my electorate of Murray. One was awarded his Victoria Cross in the Boer War, but that particular recipient, our magnificent Maygar, was also an enlistment in the First World War. Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Maygar from Euroa served bravely. He was wounded in the Battle of Beersheba after being on Gallipoli peninsula, and that is where he is buried, in a cemetery in Israel. He was the last of the officers to evacuate the Australian troops off Gallipoli and he made the comment that he did that without losing an Australian, but it was a shame that there had not been that level of efficiency and effectiveness during the campaign.

I want to describe our seven Victoria Cross awardees. Sadly, only three survived the war. There was Captain Frederick Tubb from Longwood. He survived the Lone Pine battle at Gallipoli, where he won the Victoria Cross, only to be killed in Belgium. He is buried in Belgium. His dear mate, also from Euroa, Corporal Alexander Stewart Burton, who has no known grave at Lone Pine, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Those two men showed extraordinary valour.

One of the tragedies of the First World War was that when men—often brothers or cousins, even fathers and sons—enlisted, they were very often given consecutive numbers and sent to the same brigade and the same unit; so if they were sent on a suicidal mission, such as at the Nek at Gallipoli or at Lone Pine, they all died together. The tragedy of my electorate of Murray is that there are tiny, beautifully kept surviving cairns—or sometimes bigger cairns in places that are now just districts where there is no town left at all—and memorials listing the two and three brothers who died at the same shocking episode or within days of one other. I cannot imagine the horror of the families receiving the first information, then the second, then the third that three of their sons had been killed. That is not an uncommon experience of the First World War in the small district communities.

Another First World War Victoria Cross awardee from Murray was Lieutenant Frank McNamara from Rushworth. He was in the infant Air Force. He had an extraordinary show of courage when he landed his plane—he had been wounded himself—and rescued a fellow airman in his own small plane that had been downed behind enemy lines. He could not get the other person's plane working again. He rushed back to his own plane and, despite his injuries, managed to get this airman into his plane and rescue him, all behind enemy lines and under fire. Lieutenant Frank McNamara survived the war, extraordinarily, and went on to have a brilliant career in the Air Force and in the Second World War. He became an Air Vice Marshal in World War II and finally died in Britain in 1961.

Then there is my great uncle, Albert Chalmers-Borella, Victoria Cross awardee, who grew up around Boort. He also miraculously survived the war. He was a mate of Albert Jacka, our seventh Victoria Cross winner, who was also from the same area. I will come back to Lance Corporal Albert Jacka, because he was the icon or pin-up boy for recruitment in the First World War. He was an extraordinary man. The general opinion of the day was that he should have been awarded two Victoria Crosses. He was an extraordinary man who sadly died of his injuries at the age of 39. He died trying to improve the lot of the veterans, the returned First World War soldiers.

Finally, let me mention, amongst our Murray electorate Victoria Cross recipients, Private Robert Mactier, who is buried in France. He received his Victoria Cross posthumously. He was from Tatura, a small town not far from Shepparton. He carried out an extraordinary deed of courage in the face of enemy fire, taking out machine-gun posts, going from post to post before he was finally killed at the third machine-gun post under enemy fire.

We are so proud of our seven Victoria Cross winners in Murray. I have produced a booklet which gives their citations in full and describes their lives. But of course, we must remember all of our first World War I veterans, the survivors of the war and the volunteers who never came back. We must remember that the losses decimated some districts to the point where they never recovered as district entities. I mention places like Maloga and Prairie—tiny little places that lost a generation. And then we must remember that their sisters never married—there were not the numbers of men returning for them. Their fiances had been killed, or they never had the chance to marry. They were often called maiden aunts or spinsters—that was the terminology of the era. 'Spinster' is an unkind term, I think, but there were so many maiden aunts of that generation.

I need to refer to the fact that it was not just a case of the half million volunteers who went off to the First World War from our tiny nation of just four million people. We acknowledge them, of course. There were an extraordinary number who never came back. But the toll on the returning men's mental and physical health continued unabated, with many experiencing trauma well after the war. I want to refer to the words of Albert Jacka, that great Victoria Cross winner. In 1929, he said:

Whenever you see four returned soldiers, you should think of one more soldier who did not return. Out of those four who returned, three were wounded at least twice. I do not think that the public takes into account the tremendous effect that the war had upon men who returned. More than 22,000 soldiers have died since their return, and this is some indication of the terrible effects. Thus, when you see a returned soldier in court, or 'down and out', do not judge him too harshly, but remember the terrible experiences through which he has passed.

Let me remind us: in 1930 30,000 Australian returned servicemen had died since the Armistice—30,000! That is approximately seven returned service soldiers dying every day. And when you think about those seven dying every day into the twenties and the thirties in Australia, you have to think of their wives, their mothers and fathers and their sisters and brothers who nursed and cared for those returned men—mostly men. Families looked after their appalling physical injuries and the stress and trauma that they were trying to survive emotionally.

There were so many suicides. Amongst the Victoria Cross awardees—I will not mention his name—was a Western Australian awardee. He was in desperate financial straits and went to pawn his Victoria Cross in a pawn shop. He was offered 10 shillings, so he shot himself—tragic! The good thing is that the Western Australian media said at the time that this was a courageous soldier who died for his country. They did not reflect on the sad loss that he had taken his own life in such desperate circumstances.

Remember the stretcher-bearer, born in Ireland—a Victoria Cross recipient who died in a straitjacket 15 years after the war, never having recovered from the fact that for four days he was out bringing wounded back from no man's land on the Western Front. It was four days without rest and it broke him physically and emotionally. He ended his days in a very unhelpful mental institution in Victoria, a great Victoria Cross awardee. And the great Pompey Elliott, who took his own life at the age of 65. It is those sorts of impacts.

I do not think that I need to remind people about the horrors of war, but we need to remember the sacrifice those extraordinary men and the 2,000 nurses contributed as volunteers to make our country great. Their character is what we now embrace as the ideal for all good Australians. I will never forget my grandfather, Alfred Hayward Thomas Bawden MM of the great 4th Light Horse of northern Victoria, who died too young in his early sixties. Lest we ever forget.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, before I just acknowledge Matthew Kinnia, who is a student at Western Heights College in my electorate. He is in parliament this week as part of the Rotary Adventures in Citizenship program. Matthew, it is fantastic to see you here and it is a great pleasure for me to have you in the advisers box.

Anzac Day this year was a genuinely remarkable day. As I attended the predawn service at the Geelong Peace Memorial in Johnstone Park at quarter past four there were literally thousands of Geelong citizens who had been there for some time, waiting to be a part of this first service of this remarkable day. From there many were going to the dawn services that happened in Portarlington, in Lara and in Norlane. And many in my electorate would have gone to the incredible dawn services in the neighbouring electorate of Corangamite—in Torquay and in places like Queenscliff. There were literally thousands—tens of thousands—of people in Geelong who were commemorating this day on a grand scale, and it was wonderful to see.

It raises the question about the meaning of Anzac Day, which I believe has become something much greater now than it was even 20 years ago. We have seen the phenomenon of an increasing number of people participating in Anzac Day events. I think it does behove us to think about what this phenomenon is and the significance of Anzac Day.

It is, of course, the way in which Australia commemorates its 'veterans' day', if you like. It commemorates the service and the sacrifice of those who have served our nation in armed conflict. We have heard so many wonderful speeches in this place and, indeed, around the country about that service. I think that as a way in which we commemorate the service of veterans, that we do this in as dignified and respectful a manner as any nation in the world.

I think it also tells the particular story of the place that World War I has within our nation's history. It was a conflict which, as many have remarked, occurred very early on in our nation's life. From a population of just under five million people it saw 417,000 people enlist for service—156,000 of whom were injured, including my grandfather, and 60,000 of whom lost their lives. For a young nation to experience that kind of sacrifice so early on in its existence placed upon us a firing of the soul that has left an indelible mark which is with us to this day. We can see the traces of that mark when we go to any town or village in this country which has more than 50 or 60 people in it: there is there a monument particularly to those who served and lost their lives in the First World War. Our consciousness and our identity were formed very much within the experiences of that conflict.

This leads then to the other aspect of Anzac Day which very much is about our nation's identity. Former General David Hurley, a former chief of our Defence Force, remarked in Martin Place in Sydney on Anzac Day that those Anzacs who participated in the First World War—their deeds during that time—did much more to forge our national identity than did the acts around the time of federation. I think that is a very acute observation and that it is absolutely true. The way in which Australians behaved and performed in those adverse circumstances was the first time that we had presented ourselves to the world as Australians and we did so in a way which demonstrated such great honour. It demonstrated resilience and it demonstrated a camaraderie which was remarked upon by all those who looked upon the way in which Australians engaged in their work—camaraderie by officers and privates. There was an egalitarianism in the way in which we did what we did. We were tough; those Anzacs were remarkably tough.

This element comes through in so many of the histories around the First World War—a sense of humour in the face of adversity. I think all of those characteristics are what we all think it is to be an Australian—that is what it means to be one of us, and it is why this day is so important for us. In many respects, for me, I think it is now our national day. It really is the day on which we celebrate what it is to be an Australian, as bearing those characteristics which were first put on display to the world by those remarkable Anzacs. Identity matters and, in understanding our identity, knowing our history matters.

I particularly want to tell the story of one of the Centenary of Anzac grants which I was able to participate in, which was in respect of the township of Lara in the north of my electorate. In Lara there were just over 100 people who enlisted in the First World War; 24 of them died. It was a very high casualty rate compared to the overall casualty rate. Very soon after that, in 1918, one of the very first avenues of honour to be planted anywhere in Australia. It was a circle of sugar gums around the main oval at the Lara football ground. Research was done by the Lara RSL—Bruce Challoner did fantastic work to discover this history—and a monument was paid for out of the Centenary of Anzac grants, and it now tells the story of five of the remaining sugar gums. They were part of the first avenue of honour within our region and one of the first within our country. In doing that, a piece of local history has been reclaimed. We can remember the fact that those trees were planted by people who did not know those 24 soldiers simply as names on a roll but knew them as their brothers, sons and husbands. The people who planted those trees knew them personally and they cared, and those trees a hundred years from now will be remembered for the reason they were planted. I think that is a wonderful thing. In telling that story, I really want to commend the Centenary of Anzac grants because it allowed us to do similar monuments within my electorate, as all members will have in theirs. For me, it was with the Geelong football club in St Leonards. For our children looking forward it was at schools like St John's Lutheran School and North Shore Primary School. Both have put memorials in their schools so that kids coming through will know, through their history, their identity so that they know the community to which they have been born and they understand that they are a part of something which is bigger than themselves.

Finally, for me, my personal identity and my story is imbedded in the context of Gallipoli and Lieutenant Leo Pearce. He was my great uncle who landed on Gallipoli at 8 am on 25 April 1915, within four hours of the very first landings. He was a stretcher bearer who went on to win a distinguished conduct medal on the Western Front, and his brother, my grandfather, served on the Western Front as well and was awarded a military cross. The two of them at a point in time met on the Western Front. Leo was in Gallipoli on the original Anzac day. On the same day, the grandfather of my dearest friend John Hamdi Eren, the current Victorian Minister for Sport and the member for Lara—which is a seat that sits at a state level within my seat of Corio—was there but in the forces of Mustafa Kemal, fighting to defend his homeland. If they could have spoken to each other on that day—they were within the vicinity of each other—and could have known that two generations down the track their descendants would be the best of friends and colleagues representing the Labor Party in different parliaments in this country, what an extraordinary conversation that would have been. It says so much about the special relationship which exists between Australian and Turkey, born out of conflict and, in that sense, a relationship which I think is unlike any other between two countries in the world. It says a lot to me about the significance of this particular conflict, the significance of that relationship and the significance of Gallipoli and the First World War to our nation's history and about who we are. In that, I absolutely want to add my words to say lest we forget.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with a great sense of pride that I rise to speak about the Centenary of Anzac and the contribution of the people of Hinkler to the Great War and other conflicts.

I grew up in the Hinkler region hearing stories about the courage, relentlessness and sheer bloody-mindedness of our old people. It was not until I got older myself that I understood the enormity of the loss and the injuries both physical and psychological they received and lived with. Their generation understood sacrifice in a way that I hope my children never have to.

The Centenary of Anzac is an opportunity to reflect on the significant contribution the people of Hinkler made to the Great War and how that fateful day in 1915 shaped our region. Before WWI, Bundaberg Base Hospital had 16 beds to service a community of just 9,000 people. Hervey Bay was little more than a collection of small seaside villages. Men had an average life expectancy of just 55 years and women 58 years. Sugar mills were relatively new and the region also had several juice mills. Locals often talk about how during the Great War the Wide Bay Burnett region was thought to have lost more of its young men per head of population than any other region in the nation. Records show Childers had a population of about 1,200 in the early 1900s. Some 360 local men enlisted; 85 did not return. You only have to look at our local commitment to building and preserving memorials to understand how devastating the Great War must have been to our tight-knit community. The Isis region, for example, has five monuments commemorating the contribution of residents from Cordalba, Apple Tree Creek, Doolbi, Childers and Woodgate. These monuments give us a physical place to reflect on the fortitude shown by our forebears. They came from all walks of life to take on what was billed as an adventure. The battlefields of WWI were anything but a dream; they were, quite simply, a walking nightmare.

I would like to share some of the untold local stories about conflicts Australia has been involved in and to express what Anzac means to Hinkler residents. These contributions are from residents in my electorate in their own words, which were included in my local Centenary of Anzac brochure. Firstly, Alan Larsen, a Vietnam veteran from Toogoom said:

Growing up in the Dawson Valley, I had no idea that I would one day follow in the footsteps of my two great uncles who served in the Light Horse Regiments in WWI.

Just three months before my 19th birthday I crashed my Triumph motorcycle at reckless speed, giving me the kick I needed to hastily enlist in the military.

I commenced recruit training in 1962 before being posted to the 1st Battalion the Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR). It was a life changing experience for a Dululu farm boy, but one I excelled at and revelled in. We were sent to Papua New Guinea in July 1964, and in May 1965 we landed in Vietnam where we were attached to the American 173d Airborne Brigade (Sep) as the third rifle battalion. Our service in Vietnam was to start a new chapter of the ANZAC tradition.

The war had intensified and shortly after our arrival, 1RAR set up Fire Support Base Coral, an operation that lasted for 28 days. I distinctly remember someone singing 'Waltzing Matilda' at the height of battle during the second attack. A month later I was medevaced home with a recurring fever and discharged.

The unique combination of strength, bravery and larrikinism that epitomises the ANZAC spirit lives on in a new wave of military men and women, who are willing to fight to keep this country what it is: a land of true choice and freedom!

Here are the words of Alf Dennis, of Dundowran Beach, who went to Gallipoli for the centenary after the ballot:

On the 25th of April 1915, my father— a stretcher bearer in the 5th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF)—landed on the beach at Gallipoli in Turkey. The slaughter that followed touched every household in Australia. The loss of so many young men is something most would choose not to remember. However, we choose to commemorate that fateful day for several reasons; including the fact it's a means to pay our respects. The Great War changed Australia from being a far flung colony of the mighty British Empire to a proud land of respected people.

Before WWI, Australia was generally considered to be a poor land with a convict background. What followed was a succession of good leaders and the evolution of a unique attitude in its citizens. Today, our way of life is the envy of the world.

Australia cares for its veterans better than any other country in the world. Anzac Day is also a time for diggers like me to be grateful to the citizens who elect governments (of both colours) that honour and support our veterans.

In this changing world, I respectfully ask our new citizens to help maintain what they came here for, and not try to turn it into what they left. To our current and future generations; I thank you for your willingness to continue our Anzac traditions.

Jenny Waldron, of the Bundaberg and District Ex-Service Women's Association said:

I spent three years in Reserves firing weapons and driving trucks, and couldn't believe when I joined the regular Army in 1980 that women there were still expected to wear white summer gloves and could only drive cars or Landrovers. I was one of five girls selected to undertake the same driver training as the men at the Army School of Transport, where debate raged about our postings. A compromise was reached: only one of us would join a field force transport unit and, if successful, the others would follow. That test case was me! I became the first female Royal Australian Corps of Transport (RACT) driver to be posted to a field force unit in the post-WWII era. In addition to being a driver, during my 20 years of service I planned and coordinated vehicles and cargo for all sorts of exercises, operational tasks, humanitarian aid missions and overseas deployments, including those in Somalia, Bougainville and East Timor.

The performance of women of my generation helped pave the way for future generations of service women. Every generation stands on the shoulders of those women that came before, and chips away at it a little bit more. Today, women perform a huge variety of jobs, including commanding ships and operational units.

The 1st Joint Movement Group, which I was a part of when it was first established, was this year awarded a Meritorious Unit Citation on Australia Day for 13 years of sustained and outstanding warlike operational service in the Middle East. Revitalizing and enhancing the War Nurses Memorial in Bundaberg, as part of honouring the Centenary of the First World War, has been my way of paying my respects to our war nurses and to all service women.

I'll leave you with three of the ten commandments issued to the Australian Contingent (IV-UNSOM) in Somalia: be honest in all your dealings; always strive to do your job to the best of your ability and never forget you are representing Australia!

Matthew Louden, of Burnett Heads, said:

I spent 39 years in the Australian Army, serving in tactical, operational and strategic units and organisations. It was a career that required my family to pack up and move across the country on 14 separate occasions. On the upshot, each member of my family is resilient, able to meet new challenges and adapt to change!

My time in the Army was a memorable and enjoyable journey; a worthy life choice. The highlight of my career was being appointed to manage the Australian Defence Force (ADF) ceremonial support activities.

I am immensely proud of my son, Jarad, who is currently serving in the 1st Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) in Townsville. Jarad joined the Army in 2005, and has been deployed on operations to East Timor and Afghanistan. His grandfather, Jim, served in the Royal Australian Air Force for 22 years.

Australians searching for the Anzac Spirit need only look in their own backyards. Our family histories speak for themselves.

The final contribution is from Amara Burns, a primary school student at St Joseph's School in Childers. I quote:

I think of Anzac day as a day to stop and remember the people who risked their lives to protect our country and help it become what it is now. Sadly, a lot of people died while protecting our country and that's why on Anzac Day we pay our respects for those who have fought, including those who have died and returned. Anzac Day is a special day to pay our respects and say thank you.

I am proud that so many of my relatives served in WWI and WWII.

I am lucky to have photos of these family members and am lucky to own some of their service medals to remember them.

As dawn broke on 25 April 2015, the Centenary of Anzac, we paused to remember. On Anzac Day and all the year through, we remember the Anzacs. We remember the contribution of our brothers and sisters from New Zealand. We remember the courage, the service and the sacrifices made by Australians in all theatres of war and peacekeeping operations. And we remember Gallipoli, a disastrous campaign but one that displayed our nation's courage for the world to see.

The attendance for the Centenary of Anzac was quite simply incredible, a demonstration of what we hold dear in Australia. When I consider that so many of our veterans, when they went to war, were not much older than some of the children who attended Anzac services, I struggle to adequately express my gratitude to those who have served our country. And, as a father, I am in awe of the parents who waved their sons and daughters goodbye. Our service men and women paid in full for the freedoms we enjoy and the pride we have in our nation. The Centenary of Anzac is a milestone that will only ever happen once. I take this opportunity to pay my respects on behalf of the people of Hinkler. It is the least that we can do. Words quite simply will never be enough. We have not forgotten. Lest we forget.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A couple of years ago I was at a meeting of the Bankstown Historical Society. I was talking about the upcoming Centenary of Anzac and seeking their advice, and the president, Ken Willis, told me about the old Bankstown War Memorial that used to be at Bankstown Memorial Oval and was now in storage, in a council depot. That set me on an expedition. I went down to the depot and I found it. What stood out were the 31 names on two stone tablets with the heading: Bankstown Heroes 1914-1918. I thought, 'Who were these men? Where did they grow up? Where did they live? What did they do before the war? Why did they enlist? And what happened to them?' As part of this year's Centenary of Anzac, I have tried to answer these questions. To do that my Anzac Centenary Committee commissioned this book, The Thirty One: the Bankstown Anzacs who never came home.

One hundred years ago Bankstown was a small semi-rural town. The railway line had just come through and the first gas street lamps were being installed. The population was about 4,000. And about 350 went off to war. The book reveals that 54, not 31, never came home but the book focuses on the 31 names on those two stone tablets. They were ordinary blokes—carpenters, wood turners, labourers, storemen, stone masons, picture framers, artists and milkmen. The youngest was only 17 when he enlisted; the oldest was 46. And they fought and they died in some of the greatest battles of the war, from Lone Pine to Villers-Bretonneux.

One of the greatest feats of bravery at Villers-Bretoneux was from a Bankstown Boy, Private Fredrick Porter, a 22-year-old milkman from Gow Street. The book tells how he single-handedly attacked a group of 10 German soldiers, killed five and forced the rest to flee. In the fight, he was wounded in the arm and broke his wrist. When the Germans realised he was wounded, they attacked again. That was a bad mistake because despite his injuries, the milkman from Gow Street killed another two of them. For his bravery, Private Porter won a Distinguished Conduct Medal. He survived the Western Front but he died of influenza on the ship back to Australia. He never made it back to Bankstown. He was buried at sea on 10 November 1918—the day before the war ended.

The book is full of stories like this, of courage and sacrifice and of human frailty—sad stories, desperately sad stories. They are stories about widows and mothers who, years after the war was over, were still searching for information on what happened to their husband or their boy. This book is a very precious thing. It tells us what happened to these men, and will help ensure my local community never forgets who they were or what they did. To help ensure that, I am distributing the book to all my local schools and giving a copy to the Australian War Memorial, and, with the permission of the House, I seek leave to table it today.

Leave granted

I want to sincerely thank: Tim Carroll from Bankstown Youth Development Service, who led this important project; Ellen Hottleman and Jennifer Madden from the Bankstown Library, who did most of the research; and Adam Courtenay, the progeny of author and writer Bryce Courtenay, who bought this story so beautifully together.

It was not the only thing we did though. After World War 1, Bankstown Council bought a piece of land called Fripps Paddock on the south side of the railway track and renamed it Memorial Oval. It is a memorial to the 31 Bankstown boys who never came home and is where that old memorial with their names on it used to stand. It is now back there, where it belongs. As part of the centenary commemorations, we organised for the memorial to be taken out of storage and installed back at Memorial Oval. And that was where a very special service on Anzac Day took place. More than 1,500 local residents turned up; 33 schools laid wreaths at the base of that old memorial, and so did 30 local community groups. My old friend Jack Bedford, one of the last Rats of Tobruk read the Ode, 100 students from Bankstown Public School sang the National Anthem, and then the big electronic scoreboard was turned into a giant TV and we sat and watched the sunrise over Gallipoli. It was a special moment for Australia and a special moment for my community.

There are a lot of people I need to thank for making this happen: my Centenary of Anzac committee, Dick Payten, Jim Wrigley, Kevin Mahony and Alan Rawlinson; All of my local RSLs, Bankstown, Bass Hill, Chester Hill and Padstow; the team at Bankstown City Council who made this happen, Kerry Sebio, Julie Hayes, Jose Papadimitriou and Matthew Jessop; and Matthew Massetto, Vice-Captain of De La Salle College, our MC on the day—an outstanding young man, the same age as some of the youngest names on that old memorial. That is not all we did either. We funded artist Jane Cavanough to develop a series of bronze sculptures for Bankstown City Gardens, and we funded a commemorative garden at Bass High School, proposed by Principal David Horton and Ingrid Winter from the P&C.

In January, I went to Gallipoli for the first time. It was part of the Mateship Trek. Every two years my colleague from across the aisle Scott Morrison and I bring together young Australians from very different backgrounds to walk in the footsteps of Australian soldiers. We have walked Kokoda track, the Sandakan Death March and the Black Cat Track. This year it was the battlefields of Gallipoli. What made it a little different this year was that we took young Australians from Turkish and Anglo-Celtic backgrounds—Ersoy, Alara, Erol, Simal, Yasmine, Georga, Hayden, Joel and Jackson. One hundred years ago some of their great grandfathers fought against each other. In January they walked together in their footsteps.

I also got the chance to walk in the footsteps of my great grandfather. His name was Jack Price. He was not an Anzac; he was a Royal Welch Fusilier. He was one of the lucky ones—he survived. And decades later, his great grandson got to know him, to love him and to call him 'Pop'. We walked 60 kilometres from Helles to Anzac to Sulva Bay. And we did it with the help of a lot of good and generous people, from our patron, the Governor of New South Wales David Hurley, to our incredible guide, Anzac Memorial historian and director, Brad Manera.

We were also privileged to walk with two distinguished Australian soldiers Major General Jim Molan, and ex-Commando Nick Hill and they walked together with two Turkish soldiers. One hundred years ago they were enemies, today good friends. We also managed to raise more than $30,000 for Soldier On, the organisation that supports Australian service men and women who have been wounded, physically or psychologically in contemporary conflicts.

On the second last day that we were at Gallipoli, we visited Shell Green Cemetery. In that cemetery lies the body of another of the 31 Bankstown boys who never came home. His name was Reginald Foote. He was an artist from Old Kent Road. He died on 17 December 1915, the day before the Anzacs evacuated. He was 20 years old.

War is nothing to be celebrated, but the people who fought and died deserve to be remembered. That is why we do these treks. That is why we have commissioned this book. On Anzac Day, I told the 1,500 people gathered at Bankstown Memorial Oval to think about their mum or to think about their dad, to think about their brother or their sister, to think about their husband or their wife, and then think about never seeing them again. That is what happened to Frederick Porter, the milkman from Gow Street. He never saw his mother, Sarah, or his dad, George, again. And that is what happened to Reginald Foote, the artist from Old Kent Road. He never saw his mum, Ethel, again. It is what happened to all of those 31 men on the memorial and to all of those who fell in World War I and to all those who have fallen since. This is not about war; it is about them—the extraordinary sacrifice they made so long ago. And that is why we do this and why we say we will remember them: lest we ever forget.

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Lest we forget.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I also get the opportunity to talk on the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. I congratulate the other members for their fine contributions. I had the great pleasure of being involved with a panel which selected so many great projects in the electorate of La Trobe. I thank all those panel members for what they achieved.

I had the great pleasure of being involved with the Emerald RSL president, Peter Maloney. Peter was very instrumental in deciding, with his team at the Emerald RSL, that they wanted to remember the Anzac spirit with something very special. They engaged a local artist. Her name is Ronnie Sexton. Ronnie produced a beautiful statue of the Unknown Soldier, carved in perfect detail in wood. This is something which the Emerald community will remember and see for many, many years to come. We also had Senator Michael Ronaldson, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, come out that day for the official unveiling in Emerald. The Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, also attended. This will be one of those events which, for many, many years to come, will be recalled and admired by our local community of Emerald.

I also had the great opportunity to work with Bob Richards and company from the Dandenong Ranges RSL to reopen the Ferny Creek memorial. What was so special about this? I grew up in Ferny Creek. At the time of World War I, Puffing Billy had only been in operation, I believe, for 15 years or so. The main trade up in the hills was tourism, and it was also logging. There was a place nearby called One Tree Hill, and we could actually see this on the day of the memorial launch. But now, obviously, it is a different time, where the forests have grown back. In Sherbrooke Forest, where the memorial is located, sadly, over so many years local residents did not even know that it was actually an Anzac memorial. So I congratulate the Dandenong Ranges RSL for the amazing work they did in the restoration to get it back to its former glory. They worked with Parks Victoria to remove the foliage which had been hiding this beautiful stone memorial. It was great to see a relative of the initial stonemason who built this beautiful memorial.

We also had an amazing event. It was called the Bells of Peace. The Bells of Peace was an event put on by the Dandenong Ranges Music Council. The Dandenong Ranges Music Council wanted to remember all those Anzacs who served and the history of our local area. They put this amazing performance on, and I congratulate Bev McAlister and her team at the Dandenong Ranges Music Council. I congratulate her for everything she did for that event, and I have to congratulate the entire team. It showed an amazing musical tribute to and history of the Anzacs. It showed how most of the young soldiers believed it was an incredible journey that they were going to be involved with. Secondly, it showed how they realised that they had to fight for their country. That was something that they were very proud to do.

They talked in this musical about the local football players. In particular, what was most moving was that they spoke about the Lilydale Football Club and how 25 young men went over to fight in the war. They had photos of those football players. I should point out that the Lilydale Football Club actually falls within the electorate of Casey, with their fine member of parliament being Tony Smith. What was most telling about this was that, out of those 25 football players, only five returned. It was incredibly sad. It was a different time without so many people there. When I was at the Emerald RSL, I learned that 32 young men there did not return—again, very, very tragic.

But also during the Bells of Peace they had a performance highlighting that, at that time, Dame Nellie Melba, who had a beautiful place down in Coldstream, was one of the key fundraisers and supporters of armed services fighting overseas. She used to put these performances on in town, raising money in support of our soldiers. One thing which came out of that, which I was not aware of, was she got very annoyed because during all these performances she could constantly hear the tapping of knitting needles. All the women there were knitting socks for soldiers, supporting our soldiers overseas. It is amazing to think of this time, when all of this was actually occurring.

I had another event at the Gembrook Primary School, and I congratulate all the RSL members in Gembrook. What was amazing about this was that the young children at the Gembrook Primary School wanted to present a letter to the local RSL. Amazingly, the letter was written in 1916, had disappeared for 40 years but was found in a pair of socks. Lo and behold, it was actually from the Gembrook Primary School students, writing to an unknown soldier fighting in World War I. Basically it said, 'Dear Unknown Soldier, we have knitted these socks for you, socks for soldiers, wanting to recognise our great support for your contribution to our nation.' It really shows and highlights how important and how big this was to Australians at the time. Right from the start at all the events that I went to, I mentioned the figures of the 60,000 Australians who did not return.

We had another event in Officer. The memorial gates were reopened in a dedication to 10 soldiers who paid the ultimate price. This was a really nice event. The old memorial had to be moved to help some roadworks to be built, and the great thing was that the Officer community, rather than looking at this as a negative, turned it into something amazing. They moved the memorial gates, built beautiful surrounds with gardens and did an incredible job. I must congratulate Rob and Carol Porter for all their hard work in getting involved in this event, and all the Officer community for their dedication.

Finally, like we have heard so many people say in this chamber, Anzac Day was something very special. I started at the Emerald dawn service, dropped into the Gembrook RSL and the Cockatoo RSL, went to the fantastic 11 am service at Berwick and made my way over to the Upwey RSL. I congratulate the members of Upwey RSL for all the fantastic work they have done. Then I went up to the Dandenong Ranges RSL. It was a fantastic day. It is a day of respect and a day of remembering all those who have served this country and in particular the 60,000 soldiers who lost their lives and are buried overseas. We always pay respects to their descendants, who were there out in force on Anzac Day.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to be able to speak today on this commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. I say that because the response by the Canberra community to Anzac Day and its centenary has been quite extraordinary.

This year's dawn service drew 120,000 people to the War Memorial and Anzac Parade. I was there at the dawn service and it was quite extraordinary. Canberra has a population of 380,000, and the capital region has between 500,000 and 600,000. A large proportion of those who gathered at the dawn service on Anzac Day were Canberrans. I thank and commend Canberrans for remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice, those who were wounded and those who were broken-hearted by the loss of loved ones during the war, and for continuing to remember the sacrifice made by our ADF, who currently serve our nation so well. We remember their continued service and acknowledge that many of those who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are injured in physical ways and in their mental health. We need to be there to support them.

It was an extraordinary turnout by Canberrans on that very cool morning. It was just wonderful to see, as the sun came up, people of all ages and backgrounds. There were children and babies, and parents wanting to bring their little babies along to commemorate the day and to also acknowledge their relatives. There were little children from schools across Canberra, throughout the region and throughout the country. Quite often there were people on their own, as I was—my husband was down the road in different spot—who were there wanting to pay quiet tribute and to acknowledge those who had served who made the ultimate sacrifice and to remember all those involved in the First World War.

The dawn service was followed by a range of services throughout the nation. We had the national ceremony here in Canberra, and once again the turnout for that was quite extraordinary. It was not just among the people who came to watch where there were record numbers. We also had a record turnout in terms of participants. There were people from the local RSLs here in Canberra—the Woden RSL and RSLs right across the city. We had the cadets out from HMAS HarmanNavy, Army and Air Force cadets—who were there marching proudly. We had a range of groups, from peacekeepers to police force members to civilians, who have been involved in Afghanistan. We had Vietnam veterans. We had representation from humanitarian as well as the conflict— (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the honourable member will have leave to continue her remarks at that time.