Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since Federation, our nation's security has been maintained and our nation's identity has been forged by the brave men and women who have served Australia at home and abroad. Each and every one of these brave Australians deserves to be honoured both in life and in death. While 103,000 Australians have paid the ultimate sacrifice, thousands of others faced significant challenges when they returned home. Unfortunately, too many of these ex-service men and women are not honoured in the way they deserve, as their final resting places do not commemorate their great service to this nation.

The Australian Remembrance Army is a volunteer organisation committed to restoring and correctly commemorating the graves of Australians who have served. In Cleveland Cemetery, within my electorate, the Remembrance Army has been busy within the past month identifying unmarked graves of veterans. Through their research, they have confirmed 19 graves, all belonging to veterans of the world wars, that are unmarked, taking the total tally of Australian war veterans in the cemetery to 421.

Under the previous coalition government, federal assistance was available to organisations like the Remembrance Army as they undertook this valuable mission to appropriately commemorate the private graves of World War I veterans. The program benefited from a $3.7 million funding commitment under the previous coalition government after a pilot program placed 1,189 markers on these resting places. Labor promised to match the coalition's $3.7 million funding ahead of the election, but their first budget cut the funding by more than half, to $1.5 million across four years, and it was revealed in Senate estimates late last year that Labor has now cut the funding to $437,000 over four years.

The Department of Veterans' Affairs statement in Senate estimates last November revealed that funding of over $18,000 was spent in 2023-24, to deliver only 42 graves. Given that some 271,800 service personnel returned to Australia from the First World War and the experts inform me that an estimated 12,000 are buried in unmarked graves, at the current rate it will take the federal government 283 years to complete this process. This is before we even get to the hundreds of thousands of World War II graves, which should also be appropriately commemorated. This simply isn't good enough. No matter whether they fell in service or not, every Australian who fought to defend our nation deserves to be honoured. I call on the government not just to reinstate the previous amount of funding that was available but to supercharge it, to ensure that the volunteer conservators and researchers of the Australian Remembrance Army can continue to do their vital work, not just getting through the World War I veterans but also getting on to those of World War II.