Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the member for Canning from moving the following motion:

That this House:

(1) condemns defacing any war memorial monument in Australia for any reason at any time; and

(2) further condemns the defacing of the Australian War Memorial on June 14 and the Korean War, Vietnam War and Army memorials on ANZAC Parade in Canberra on Saturday with language including the violent 'from the river to the sea' slogan.

There are around 4,000 to 5,000 war memorials across Australia that have been erected to honour and commemorate Australia's war dead over the last century. Small grieving towns and large cities alike erected these memorials in the wake of the calamity of the First World War. Sixty thousand Australians perished in the First World War, a huge number of men killed for such a young and relatively small nation. Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey, in his A Shorter History of Australia, put it like this:

Perhaps the most drastic effect of the war would never be enumerated: it was the loss of all those talented Australians who would have become prime ministers and premiers, judges, divines, engineers, teachers, doctors, poets, inventors and farmers, the mayors of towns and leaders of trade unions, and the fathers of another generation of Australians. It was a war in which those with the gift of leadership, the spark of courage, and the willingness to make sacrifices often took the highest risks. A young nation could not afford to lose such men.

Geoffrey Blainey wrote that that's why we responded in the way we did, with so many memorials across our great country. He continued:

No nation in Europe showed such a visible desire to remember, to honour.

We've added to those memorials with subsequent wars. We fought in the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and, more recently, the Afghan war. All those wars, sadly, have led to the loss of more Australian men and women in service. We have 103,000 war dead remembered on those memorials across this nation. It's a reminder that this nation has sacrificed greatly and has borne the cost of war.

That's why the Australian War Memorial was built and opened on Remembrance Day in 1941 and why Anzac Parade was opened on Anzac Day in 1965 by Sir Robert Menzies. Anzac Parade is lined with memorials on both sides: the Hellenic Memorial, the Kemal Ataturk Memorial, the Army, Navy and Air Force memorials, the Service Nurses Memorial, the Rats of Tobruk Memorial, the Boer War, Vietnam War and Korean War memorials, and the Desert Mounted Corps Memorial. The architecture and design of all those memorials remind us of sacrifice. They remind us of sacrifice and the values of our fighting men and women—the values of service, courage, respect, integrity and excellence. These are Australian values and our ADF are their custodians. If you go to the ADF website, you will see those values listed out: service, courage, respect, integrity and excellence. Australians have fought for these values, Australians have died for these values and our memorials reflect these values.

That is why the ugly defacement and desecration of our war memorials is so disgraceful. It dishonours our war dead, and this, sadly, is a pattern that has emerged over the last six months. We saw, on 11 November last year, the Melbourne war memorial vandalised on Remembrance Day. On 12 January 2024 we saw the Tasmanian war memorial vandalised. On 11 March we saw the Vietnam War Memorial vandalised. In May this year we saw the Hyde Park Anzac Memorial vandalised after protests. Red dye was poured into the Pool of Reflection. On 14 June 2024 the Australian War Memorial was vandalised with pro-Palestinian slogans. Just on the weekend, the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial and the Army Memorial on Anzac Parade were vandalised. This vandalism represents something far deeper and grotesque. This vandalism is an attack on our Australian values, but it's also an attack on our way of life. It's an attack on the thing that binds us together—a shared heritage of service and sacrifice, something that on 25 April, Anzac Day, every year all Australians come together and focus on as a nation.

But, sadly, it goes even deeper than that. On the Vietnam and Korean war memorials were written phrases like this: 'They didn't die so we could fund genocide,' 'Free Gaza,' 'Blood on your hands,' 'Free Palestine,' and, the most disgraceful, 'From the river to the sea'—a deeply anti-Semitic slogan with origins in violent terrorism.

Indeed, 'from the river to the sea' has its origins in the Hamas charter of 2017. Hamas is a terrorist organisation listed by the Australian Commonwealth. It is committed to the destruction of the Jewish people and the state of Israel. It is an organisation driven by extreme religious ideology that celebrates death, violence and hatred. They are people who will not compromise. Just in case people don't believe this, I'll make it very clear; I'm going to read now from the 2017 Hamas charter, their document of general principles and policies. Paragraph 20 says this:

Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine …

And here are the words:

… from the river to the sea.

Hamas represents the worst of humanity. We've all heard it said: 'By a fruit its tree shall be known.' On 7 October, we saw the poisonous and evil fruit of Hamas's ideology on full display when they attacked, murdered and raped more than 1,000 innocent Israelis on that terrible day.

And now we have Australians defacing our war memorials with phrases straight out of the Hamas charter. In this country now we are seeing mob rule challenge the rule of law. In this country now, we are seeing mob rule challenge the rule of law. We are seeing the mob tear apart our social cohesion. We are seeing the mob challenge the values that define our nation. And we are seeing the mob trample on our war dead and the values they died for. Everyone here on this side of the House condemns in the strongest possible terms this vile, disgraceful, destructive, divisive and un-Australian behaviour.

We've all been touched in some way or other by 7 October. I think of some Jewish friends in Melbourne who I came to know through this tragedy—a couple who are living in my electorate of Canning, who contacted me soon after 7 October. I'll leave their names off the Hansard in order to protect them, because they feel unsafe. They are Jewish Australians, and the female's mother was killed by Hamas on 7 October. She'd just rung her up to let her know she was pregnant. Her brother was killed protecting his family, and her 10-month-old niece was brutally murdered. I think of her when I read 'from the river to the sea'. As an Australian, how must she feel having suffered so badly at the hands of evil terrorism? It fills me with shame. It fills all of us with shame. That's why we raise this today in the House. I say it again—we condemn this in the strongest possible terms.

This is not an isolated pattern of behaviour. We're seeing electoral offices across the country also targeted. We've seen the Prime Minister's office besieged by protestors chanting the same sorts of things. We've seen the Deputy Prime Ministers, the Attorneys-General, the minister for immigration, the minister for NDIS, the member for Franklin, the member for Wills, the member for Cooper, the member for Jagajaga, the member for Macnamara and the member for Riverina—I could go on. This is a pattern of behaviour which is tearing at the cohesion of this country. We're seeing our universities encamped by protesters who are willing to chant the same slogans that we find in the Hamas charter. We're seeing this at the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, the University of Adelaide, the University of Queensland, the Australian National University, Deakin University, Curtin University, RMIT University, La Trobe University, the University of Wollongong and the University of Tasmania. We have a rot at the heart of Australian society right now, and we have young Australians who are chanting terrorist slogans and defacing our war memorials. It's got to stop. It requires political leadership, and that's why we're raising this issue right now. We believe this issue demands political leadership, and we want to ensure that our law enforcement agencies across the states feel that they have our backing to enforce the rule of law, to arrest these people and to prosecute these people, and send a message that modern Australia, with all its diversity, will only cohere if people respect each other, respect the rule of law and uphold the Australian values that I've outlined today.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. Deputy Speaker, when we go to a war memorial, we see names. We see your name; we see Chesters. We see the names Leigh, Buchholz and Pearce. We see the names of people of Czech descent. We see the names of so many people—McCormack. They're just names, but they're so much more. They represent people. They represent people who walked down your street. They represent people who took shade under your tree, who swam in your river and who went to your local primary school. They were people who were loved. They were people who had wives and people who had girlfriends, people who had mates and, later on, people who had husbands.

They were not superhumans. They had all the reasons not to go to war. They had all the reasons to stay at home, where it was safe. But nonetheless they did. They went and they fought, and so many of them gave their lives. That was it. There was nothing more for them. They were dead. Others came back maimed or psychologically disturbed. And then, beyond that, some came back and the marriage was over—no more marriage. Or they came back and they were just forgotten about, to later die and be buried in a pauper's grave, unmarked. Or life had just gone on without them, their careers left behind.

For so many, all that is left is their name on that memorial. That is it. And, for that, in the Australian context they are sacred. They are sacred. For so many of us, it is your grandfather, your great-grandfather, your granduncle, your son, your daughter, your mum or your dad. It's the connection to that. 'That's all I've got. All I've got left is that name.' I had seven granduncles killed—seven. Every one of my grandmother's brothers—dead. They were English; they weren't Australian. The desecration is abominable.

My father wouldn't even let you draw a swastika. You were not allowed to—not on a German plane; nothing—because symbols matter. Symbols matter. What you draw matters. He was a returned serviceman. He was repatriated. He was smashed up. These are the things where we have to make a stand.

On those war memorials are the names of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and gentiles, Christians and people of the Islamic faith. Every name is there. My grandfather fought with innumerable people of the Islamic faith, absolutely, at Gallipoli—surrounded by them.

When we think about this, a person decided to sneak out in the night with a can of spray paint. Do you know why they sneaked out in the middle of the night? Because he or she was scared. That is why they sneaked out. Scared of what—the police? What would the police do? They would arrest you. And then he or she sprayed the anarchy sign, in most instances, on our war memorials for these people. But guess what they went out against? They faced the fire coming the other direction. They had real fear they could die—die at Gallipoli, die on the Western Front, die at Guadalcanal, die in Papua New Guinea, die in Korea, die in Afghanistan, die in Vietnam. They had real fear, and they would have felt that fear; they would not have been immune from it. And their families will mourn their loss forevermore. The only thing left for those families is that piece of brass with their families' names on it. And someone—some piece of filth—has decided that their issue allows them to desecrate it.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start my contribution in responding to the motion just moved by the member for Canning by making it very clear that the government's position is entirely supportive of the sentiments raised and the position espoused in the substantive motion the member for Canning seeks to bring forward today; that's an important point to make. The second point I make in relation to that is that has been made abundantly clear by the answer given by the Prime Minister in question time yesterday in relation to this issue, as well by as the speech made before question time today by the member for Spence and a number of speeches that were made by Labor senators in respect of a motion moved by Senator Lambie on Monday; that's an important thing to recognise. It's unfortunate, however, in these circumstances that this motion has been brought on with no notice to the government. But the sentiments are entirely supported.

To pick up on a point that was being made by the member for New England just now: when we look around our communities all across Australia, in mine, in the park in the centre of Armadale in Western Australia—a town that grew because of the brickworks in Armadale—and in Byford, in the member for Canning's electorate, there is a war memorial made not of stone, not of granite, but of brick. It lists the names of the people from our community for whom there are named streets, parks, suburbs, buildings and lakes. That memorial is a 'who's who' directory of our geography. That is true of every memorial around the country. It's why the official war historian for the First World War, Charles Bean, was such an advocate for the creation of the Australian War Memorial in the first place—so that those men that fought in the First World War always knew that what they fought and died for would never be forgotten, that their lives would never have been given in vain. That is true of every war memorial that has come after it. It's particularly poignant for wars that are sometimes overlooked by mainstream Australia and global history, like the Korean War. It's even more important for memorials that stand in memoriam of, dedication to and commemoration of the lives lost and the efforts made by Australians who fought in a war that was so politically contested at the time, like the Vietnam War.

The thread that runs through all these war memorials is that these are people that walked away from their families, from their loved ones, from their jobs and from their lives, put on a uniform for our nation at the direction of their government and, for many, made the ultimate sacrifice. They did it because they were committed to our values. Those are values of democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of political communication. They are the values that enable peaceful protests to occur in our country in the first place. For anybody to use that freedom to desecrate a war memorial is an abuse of the freedom we have been granted and awarded through the sacrifice that has been made by those people that have died or fought in our name. That is what makes what has occurred not just this week but a number of times now at different memorials not just in Canberra, in our nation's capital, but in other places around Australia so absolutely abhorrent.

I'm not going to refer to who those people are and I'm not going to refer to what they said, because I don't want to amplify what they are trying to message through their actions. What I seek to do is to condemn what they have done, because it cuts against the exact freedom that they are espousing and it cuts against the exact freedom they are afforded in being able to exercise those free democratic rights in every other way that they or anyone else may seek to raise their cause in this country. That is what makes what has happened here not just truly abhorrent but problematic.

In saying all of that, it confirms exactly what the member for Canning has sought to do by bringing forward this motion today and it confirms why Senator Lambie brought forward her motion at the beginning of the week. That motion was supported by the government, and the sentiments were supported by the Prime Minister in his answer in question time yesterday, in the speech made by the member for Spence, in the public comments made by the Minister for Defence on Sunday and in the comments that I have made previously in relation to these things occurring at other memorials. I think both sides of this House and many on the crossbench join together in those sentiments. It is deeply concerning to me that there was a political party in the Senate that voted against that motion on Monday. I think we all agree with that. For that reason, and certainly to avoid a repeat of that, I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the debate be adjourned.