Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Changi is synonymous with suffering, but it's also synonymous with courage, resilience, defiance and survival. Last week, it was my great privilege to attend the Swansea RSL Sub Branch on the East Coast of my electorate and listen to a story about a flag. I do not exaggerate when I say the 30 minutes or so that I was there, standing with a group of RSL members and volunteers, was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

I met Arthur Pegg, who had donated the flag—with a small Union Jack on it—to the Swansea RSL, in the hope that it might be displayed. But this isn't just any old flag. This small flag, unremarkable in itself and, no doubt, mass produced at the time, was in the possession of Frederick William Pegg, Arthur's father, who was a prisoner of war in Changi for more than three years during World War II.

Fred was born in Somerset in Tasmania's north and spent his latter years in Campbell Town in the Northern Midlands, where Arthur grew up and spent his working life as a shearer, before retiring to the East Coast. Scrawled on the flag are 89 names and details—sometimes hometowns and sometimes service numbers—of Fred and his fellow POWs. In their own hand, they wrote their own names: BM Frost of Victoria Park, FH Keirle of Katanning, TW Montgomery of Ultimo, LR Parkes of Woy Woy and so many more, some hardly legible now.

I stood there, rapt, thinking of what it must have been like for those men to put their names to that flag in those conditions. They were men in different phases of emaciation and suffering but who were resilient, strong and defiant enough to say: 'I am here. I live. I matter.' Of course, some of those who signed the flag would die in captivity, never to return home. The flag, with a couple of bullet holes in it and what looked like old bloodstains, sat there on a table in front of me at the RSL, laid out on tissue paper. I could have touched it but I knew I shouldn't, and I didn't. It was simply too precious an artefact. I'm not religious, but I felt reverence—not for the flag so much but for what it represented and for what those scrawled and scribbled names said to me across the years.

Arthur says that if the Japanese had found the flag on his father he would have been shot. Fred kept it hidden throughout his captivity, and it remained in his possession until his death in Tasmania and its passing down to Arthur. Now getting on himself in years, Arthur weighed up whether to keep the flag in the family's possession and hand it to younger generations of the Pegg clan or bequeath it to the nation. I am so pleased and proud that Arthur decided on gifting the flag to the Swansea RSL. It is, with no exaggeration, a national treasure.

I would like to acknowledge the Swansea RSL's Julie Orr, Noel Stanley, Neville and Suzanne Payne—for their tireless research—and president Bill Costin. There will, of course, be others that I've failed to mention. On behalf of the Swansea RSL, Bill submitted an application under the Australian government's Saluting Their Service Commemorative Grants Program for a project that will appropriately protect the Pegg flag for generations to come. The application was approved in the most recent round, and it will fund professional framing and the flag's preservation in oxygen-free gas. It will be lit with lights that will not impair the ink or colours of the flag. The Pegg flag will have pride of place in the Swansea RSL, and I am sure it will be visited by family members of the British and Australian servicemen who were imprisoned at Changi. I very much look forward to the completion of this project and to seeing the framed flag displayed on the wall.

As well as to the Pegg flag, saluting their service funding was awarded to other areas of my electorate too. Southern Midlands Council will receive $6,680 to install a plaque at the Melton Mowbray park to commemorate Lieutenant Colonel John Hutton Bisdee VC OBE. John Bisdee of the 1st Tasmanian Imperial Bushmen was in an eight-man mounted patrol that was ambushed during the Boer War. Bisdee hoisted an injured officer onto his own horse, and, despite having been wounded himself, he ran alongside, under fire, until he too could mount and escape. He also served as a light horse officer in the First World War, and, by 1918, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Anzac Provost Corps. Bisdee was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1919. He eventually returned to farming in Tasmania, where he died in 1930, and, of course, he was part of that very well-known Bisdee clan in the Southern Midlands.

Kentish Council has received $10,000 to create and install a mural to commemorate locals who served during the First and Second World Wars. Northern Midlands RSL Sub Branch will receive $9,500 to enhance its memorial garden at the Longford Cenotaph. Sheffield RSL Sub Branch will receive $3,025 to refurbish its honour boards. Molesworth Primary School will install flagpoles and the associated landscape to host commemorative events. Meander Valley Council will receive $9,035 to construct a cenotaph to honour and remember Australia's service personnel.

In May, the Albanese government announced that we are investing an additional $477 million to increase support to the more than 340,000 veterans and dependants who access services through the DVA. In the 2022-23 October budget, we invested more than $233.9 million to engage 500 new frontline staff at the DVA to eliminate the veteran compensation claims backlog that we inherited following the 2022 election.

Last week, Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Matt Keogh; and Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Julie Collins, launched the Veterans' Acute Housing Program. Funded by the Housing Australia Future Fund, this new $30 million program is intended to support veterans and their families experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

Across Lyons, the Australian government's Veteran Wellbeing Grants One-Off Program has invested more than $290,000 into a multipurpose education and training centre for veterans in Lake Sorell. I will say I'm very much looking forward to representing Minister Keogh and officially opening this new facility on his behalf next month.

I'm sure I speak for every member when I say this: at the very least, our nation owes support to those who served, especially those who served in combat roles, when they return home to civilian life. For those that we have lost, we must ensure that their sacrifice is always remembered.

Lest we forget.