Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Remembrance Day is a very important and a very significant day for our nation. It continues to represent a time when Australians can stand together alongside our veterans, our service personnel and their families to remember those who have lost their lives serving in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations. On Saturday, my community on the southern Gold Coast came together at many services, including those at Currumbin, Burleigh Heads, Coolangatta and Mudgeeraba, to honour the memories of those 103,000 men and women in our history who made the ultimate sacrifice.

We are all acutely aware of the conflicts that are taking place elsewhere in the world at this present time, in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and, of course, these conflicts impact Australia and Australians.

Last Saturday, the Ukraine Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, attended the Remembrance Day service at Currumbin RSL, and I had the opportunity to speak directly with him about the courage and the bravery of Ukrainians as they fight to defend their nation against the invasion by Russia. I also had the opportunity to speak with him about my recent trip to Sweden and the UK, where I saw firsthand Ukrainian volunteers being trained to fight for their nation. Their bravery, quite frankly, is beyond words, as they face the very real prospect that they will die as they fight for their nation. It gave me an opportunity to reflect on what those people are facing, but also on what those many brave women and men of Australia have faced in many conflicts and peacekeeping operations around the world. Their bravery is also beyond words.

We all recognise, particularly here in this place but also more broadly throughout the Australian community, what it is like for those people as they train and as they face conflicts where they know there is a very real prospect that they will be disabled, perhaps permanently, or that they will die, and the impact that that will have on their families as they face a future without them.

We need to be very conscious of everything that is happening around the world at this point in time and remember the great efforts that many people undertake to ensure that their nation remains as free as it possibly can be. On Remembrance Day this year, it was an opportunity for us to reflect on that, and I seriously encourage all people to continue to remember every single day the veterans and our serving personnel here in Australia. Lest we forget.