Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Almost all of the more than 39,000 Australian Defence Force personnel who served in Afghanistan marched out of Kapooka at Wagga Wagga in my Riverina electorate. On 12 July, an important and historic event took place at Kapooka when helicopter pilot and Brigadier Stephen Jobson, who had been commandant at the base and had been in Afghanistan, was promoted to Major General, and this is what he had to say about Kapooka:

Since 1951, soldiers—young men and women—have been coming here to this institution to become soldiers and serve their nation. They've come here out of families, from communities all over our great nation.

And I often say to people they don't just come here to learn marksmanship and navigation and first aid and go out in the bush.

They come here to learn values.

They come here to be soldiers. They leave here as Australian citizens.

It's an incredible place.

But there is one aspect about Kapooka for me, the Army Recruit Training Centre for me, that is extraordinary. And that is the absolute faith and trust and confidence that those young men and women place in the leadership of the Army.

They come here having made an unlimited liability to our nation. And they come here relying on the leadership, the competence, the ability of those who will lead them in those circumstances.

And that is not lost on me because that is not just their expectation, that is not just their family's expectation—that is the Australian community's expectation that their young men and women that are serving their interests in the Australian Army will be well led, will be well led by the leaders at all levels and in particular well led by their generals.

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