Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As this is the last sitting week before Anzac Day, can I take the opportunity to encourage all Australians, including my constituents in Menzies, to participate in the various Anzac Day services, both on Anzac Day and beforehand. Over these four years, we are commemorating the centenary of the Great War, and it is worth recalling that more than 400,000 Australians enlisted to fight in the Great War, and another 3,000 nurses in addition to the 400,000 men. The population of Australia at that stage was about five million. To put that in context, 400,000 out of a population of five million—but you need to halve that because the 400,000 were males—so we are talking about one in five of males in Australia enlisted. And, then, if you break that down to the ages of people who enlisted—of eligible ages—somewhere in the order of one in two to one in three young adult men, some of them barely out of adolescence, enlisted to fight in the Great War. It is no wonder why that war had such a significant impact on the psyche of this country.

There is nowhere in Australia, in your electorate, Deputy Speaker, or mine, or every small city or town, every village or, indeed, hamlet throughout this country where there is not a memorial which has on it the names, sometimes of dozens, of people who went to fight in the Great War and many of whom did not return and many more of whom were injured. We commemorate, in particular, this year what has been described as the last great cavalry charge in history, the Battle of Beersheba, where the Australian Light Horse was involved liberating Beersheba. That started the breakthrough against the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent progression through what is now Israel, Jerusalem and the Levant. Indeed, there was some 31 light horsemen who were killed in that charge and another 36 who were injured. As I said, I encourage all Australians to participate in Anzac Day services. In my electorate, or close to my electorate, on the Sunday before Anzac Day at 2.45 pm at the Croydon RSL and at 3 pm at the Doncaster RSL and, then, on Anzac Day itself there at dawn services at Croydon at 5.45 am and at Doncaster, also at 5.45 am. There are services at Templestowe with a march beginning at 8 am and a service at 8.30, and a service, also with a march, beginning at Warrandyte at 10.30 am and a service at 11 am. It is our opportunity to say how grateful we are to the men and women who served and continue to serve this country in the Australian Defence Forces.