Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

This is the first opportunity I've had to congratulate you on your overwhelming election to preside over this very important states house, Mr President.

Tonight I'd like to speak about an experience I had earlier today. This morning I joined my colleague Senator Patrick Dodson, Dr Brendan Nelson, the director of the Australian War Memorial, several senior male artists from the APY Lands and military representatives at the Australian War Memorial to officially unveil a painting that depicts the significance and importance of 'defence of country' for Aboriginal Australians. In late 2016, the Australian War Memorial director, Dr Nelson, commissioned the APY Lands Arts Centre Collective to create a work that portrayed the importance of defence of country for Aboriginal Australians.

The APY Lands are in my home state of South Australia and they are home to seven thriving arts centres. More than 500 artists work in these centres and they create a range of paintings and objects. Today I was honoured to join 19 of those artists to celebrate the unveiling of this really important artwork. It's five metres by two metres in size and is a truly remarkable and imposing painting. The symbols in the painting represent a myriad of complex things, like rock holes and trees in the landscape, and how they are depicted as protectors of the Indigenous way of life. The tree symbol is the symbol of a male soldier, and the spears represent the weapons that the soldiers carried. It refers to a history of warfare that has spanned many thousands of years.

The artists spoke very passionately this morning about their inherent connection to country that had inspired this work that was created by these 19 artists over a period of four days. Indigenous Australians, as we all know, have a very proud history of serving our nation in the Army, in the Air Force and in the Navy. Going back as far as the Boer War, the world wars, the Vietnam War, Aboriginal Australians have defended their ancestral roots in lands far away from their own, as did many new Australians. The painting unveiled today was, for them, a reminder of the equality that exists on the battlefield, because, irrespective of politics, race and religion, we are all Australians. And we honour those who, in every sense, have fought to defend this land.

Today's unveiling was a reminder to me of our respect for all Australians who have served to protect the land that we now take for granted as being free. Earlier this year I was also very happy to see Howard Hendrick bestowed with the French Legion of Honour Medal by the French government on Anzac Day. Mr Hendrick flew more than 30 missions with the Royal Air Force over Europe during the Second World War and participated in Operation Overlord, the allied invasion of Normandy in 1944. Mr Hendrick is from the Riverland region in my home state of South Australia, where many soldiers settled following the world wars.

It was fantastic to attend the unveiling at the War Memorial today. And, of course, this followed Remembrance Day last Saturday. In my discussions with Senator Dodson on the way back from the unveiling, it was interesting to learn how extraordinarily proud we can be of these artists, because of the amount of passion that they put into the development of this amazing artwork, the representation and depiction of what it actually means to Indigenous Australians and the sacrifice that they made abroad for the protection, love and respect of their cultural and spiritual lands.

The artwork is now on permanent display, and I'd certainly encourage all of my colleagues in this place and the other place, and all Australians, for that matter, to go to the War Memorial and not only view this amazing piece of artwork, which is such an important reminder and depiction of a major part of our war history, but also honour the more than 100,000 service men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice, in addition to the current serving members of our forces and their families. I pass on my very sincere thanks to the Australian War Memorial for making today's event possible and to the artists and the people of the APY Lands for creating such an amazing artwork.