Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I do not think you were in the chamber before, but I spoke today of Corporal Daniel Keighran VC, who received his VC from the Governor-General today. I thought it would be of interest to senators that, indeed, Daniel Keighran was a driver of the Bendigo-built Bushmaster vehicle, an Australian-made vehicle. Our newest VC, of whom we are so terribly, terribly proud, was actually a driver of those Bushmaster vehicles.

I want to also talk about some matters that I was raising in the context of a matter earlier on. I was talking about the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and I mentioned to the chamber the number of World War II veterans who unfortunately are passing away at such a rapid rate. This year, of course, we remember the 70th anniversary of the darkest days of the Second World War, a conflict which cost more than 39,000 Australian lives. Earlier this year we commemorated the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Darwin, the first ever enemy attack on the Australian mainland. We commemorated this event on the first ever Bombing of Darwin Day, and I want to pay tribute to the fantastic efforts of my colleague from the other place Natasha Griggs, whose motion to establish the day was unanimously adopted by both houses of parliament. Natasha, you have left a quite remarkable legacy by pushing this issue so hard. We have also marked the 70th anniversary of the fall of Singapore, the Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Milne Bay. And 1942, of course, marked the turning point in the war both in our region and in Europe. I want to make some comments about Kokoda. Notwithstanding the views of academics like Professor David Horner, who I notice is currently a member of the Gillard Labor government's hand-picked Anzac Centenary Advisory Board, the battle for Kokoda was an extremely important part of Australia's campaign against the Japanese. Defeat on Kokoda, as in Milne Bay, was not an option. The stories of those Australians who served in the mud, the rain and the jungle terrain in one of the world's last untouched wildernesses are timeless. The courage of these men is without question and their contribution is without question. For someone to come out publicly to reflect on both that battle and, by default, those who fought in it, I think, is a deeply, deeply disappointing outcome.

I was talking before about the young men and women who have served this country in the last 20 years, and what we need to do to not repeat the mistakes we made for those who returned from Vietnam. I spent a lot of time with Vietnam veterans, and I am quite frankly sickened to hear some of their stories of being spat upon on their return from Vietnam. These young men were doing no more and no less than serving this nation at the request of the nation.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jim Spigelman.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed. For them to be treated in that way, I still believe, is a matter of deep national shame. We have 60,000 young men and women who have served in the last 20 years returning to this country. They are going to require this nation to support them for at least the next 70 years. Honourable senators might not be aware that the youngest client of DVA is under 12 months of age. This nation is going to have to support those young men and women and their families for many, many decades. If we as a nation forget what the uniqueness of military service is and, if we as a nation stop supporting and reflecting on the sacrifices those young men and women have made, then we will repeat the mistakes of Vietnam. This nation cannot afford to do so. This nation owes these young men and women for their service to this country. We cannot continue to slash those support mechanisms, such as this funding, which is about— (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support what Senator Ronaldson said in relation to the last document. It is important that we learn from Vietnam. Without putting too fine a point on it, what happened in those Vietnam War days—and, regrettably, I am old enough to have been around—was that the government of the day pilloried the effort in Vietnam. They had a particular political aversion to the war in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the government of the day could not distinguish between their aversion to the political implications of that war and the Australian troops who fought in it. The Australian troops went there, as Senator Ronaldson rightly said, as servants of their nation. The government of the day had sent them there. They did not make the decision. They did not particularly have a political ideology on that war. They went there because they were told to go there, and they did.

But when they returned there was a different government in charge and the new government had a political aversion which, regrettably, it allowed to roll over, disgracefully, onto the returning troops. There were some horrible incidents, as Senator Ronaldson has indicated, and some of those veterans even today still talk about the way they were treated. It was not their fault they were there. The government of the day stands condemned, and always will stand condemned, for the fact that they could not draw the line between the troops, between the diggers, and their political aversion to that particular conflict.

It would have been so easy for the Prime Minister of the day to have said: we totally oppose this fight against communism, we totally oppose the war in Vietnam, but we are very, very proud of our troops who have been doing what their government asked them to do. Unfortunately, the government of the day did not say that and the returning troops were pilloried in the political groundswell that occurred at that particular time. It was a disgraceful part of Australia's history. That is why John Howard and people like Senator Ronaldson are going overboard to make sure that, when troops come back—and it does not matter the reason or the cause for their deployment overseas—they are treated as heroes.

There would be many things for which John Howard will have a real legacy for his prime ministership, but one of them will clearly be how John Howard, who went through the era that I did, was determined to make sure that every returning troop was treated as a hero. He set out to increase the prevalence, relevance and support for every military celebration from Anzac Day to Kapyong. It was John Howard, because of his experiences after Vietnam, who put money—and more than that, he put his own personal aura—into making sure that all of those troops were treated as heroes. In that respect I agree with Senator Ronaldson's remarks on this document.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also wish to take note of the document we are talking about today. In doing so, I think the previous contribution has been a rewriting of history. It is true that in Australia we did not treat our servicemen returning from Vietnam properly. I was not of an age to know then; I was not old enough. But I have read the history and I think it was not a time in our history that we should be proud of. But to then take the next step, as Senator Macdonald has done, and sheet the blame home to one political party alone is taking a step too far. We are talking about people who are still hurting. Many of them we know. Many of them all of us in this chamber have worked with, working through some of the terrible trauma they are still living with. But to pick open a sore in the way that Senator Macdonald has just done is unfair to them, does not help them and is, in my view, a rewriting of history. To apportion blame in such a blanketing way is hurtful. There are returned Vietnam servicemen who have served as Labor members of parliament. To blanket all of us in the way you just did is wrong, unfair and I totally take exception to it.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to make a short contribution to take note of this report. I listened very carefully and with great interest to what Senators Ronaldson and Macdonald both said. I am married to someone who was in the Navy for 35 years and served with great distinction. When you are in a family where Vietnam is remembered and is remembered very, very respectfully—let us not forget that there are certainly people, my husband and my husband's friends among them, who remember those days, who saw how our returned servicemen were treated when they did come back. Senator McLucas, it certainly is a stain on our history. But it is also a stain on our history that people who served in Vietnam were, as Senator Ronaldson said, justly spat upon when they came home. It is yet another stain on our history that many of our young people serving in the military—who were at university, for example—were told that they were better off not wearing their uniforms to university, or not being seen in public in their uniforms, because of the fact that there was this negativity against people who had served in Vietnam.

But what really galled them was to see those people who had stood on the streets and who had railed and protested against the Vietnam War—in ways that made those returning veterans sick to the stomach—subsequently promoted and going on to careers of distinction. You know who I mean—the Speigelmans of this world and others who went out there to protest and who did not, in my view, cover themselves in glory when doing that. Veterans saw them promoted into positions of rank. That did gall them, and it still galls them. Senator McLucas, you may not have been privy to some of those conversations of people who did return and who did serve in the military with distinction, but I have been. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.