John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too support this motion of condolence on the death of Sapper Jamie Larcombe. As we have heard, Sapper Larcombe was killed on 19 February, just one day after his third anniversary of joining the Australian Defence Force. He was serving on his first tour of Afghanistan. We know that Sapper Larcombe’s death is the 23rd operational death in Afghanistan on Operation Slipper. His is the fifth death of a combat engineer in Afghanistan and the second from the Darwin based 1st Combat Engineer Regiment within recent weeks.

Sapper Larcombe was killed while patrolling an area south-east of Patrol Base Wali in the Mirabad Valley of Oruzgan Province. An insurgent group engaged ISAF forces and Sapper Larcombe along with an Afghan interpreter was shot, having disembarked their Bushmaster vehicle. A Medivac helicopter was immediately deployed to rescue the pair, but both had died before returning to Tarin Kot.

Every Australian soldier killed in action in Afghanistan leaves a grieving family, grieving friends and grieving members of the Australian Defence Force. At a time like this our thoughts are with them—the people so terribly affected by the death of their loved one, whom we honour in a condolence motion such as this. Today it is Sapper Larcombe’s family, as well as others who are close to him—his parents, partner, three sisters, his friends and his mates from the 1st Combat Engineer Regiment. I can only hope, as other senators have said, that these words and the many others that have been written and spoken about Jamie are of some comfort to them. Finding the appropriate words when such an enormous sacrifice has been made is difficult, but I can say, particularly to those close to Jamie Larcombe, that we in the Senate join with very many other Australians who will always honour him and will never forget his sacrifice.