Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

April 25 1915, 100 years ago this year, is obviously a day of singular significance in our national story. For nigh on 100 years this day has been remembered by Australians as one that is sacred to the memory of those who fought in war and one on which we remember the privilege we have as a nation that has lived in peace. Anzac Day was not the day when we were discovered or when we became a nation or we won our independence, but it was in a real sense the day when we proved to the world that we were worthy of nationhood—that Australians could be counted upon to do our share. The image of the tough Aussie battler was certainly entrenched on the day. There is no other day that provides such a deeply held communal, national, heart-felt, long-standing view of who and what we are, and what we have to live up to.

I was recently at the War Memorial alongside the name of my great uncle who died in World War I. A Swiss television crew came up to me and asked 'Why do Australians commemorate Anzac Day?' People around the world think it is rather strange that we should recognise a day that ended in military disaster—a campaign that was more noted for its successful exit than for the battle itself. For us this has been an important national day. I replied to the crew that this was important to Australians because it said a lot about our nationhood—it said a lot about what we believed of ourselves and our willingness to accept responsibility to be citizens of the world and to ensure that our nation could continue to live in peace into the future.

For a while we thought Anzac Day might just drift away, as one by one the veterans passed through the effluxion of time. I think it is exciting, and it is important, that Australians are turning up to Anzac Day commemorations in bigger numbers than ever before. It is impressive that school children and young people and citizens who never went to war are now engaged in Anzac Day commemorations in every town and village in the nation. That ensures that those who fought and died in war will never be forgotten, will always be remembered, and hopefully each of those days will be an opportunity for Australians to dedicate themselves again to their citizenship, their obligations to their country and the recognition of those who paid the supreme sacrifice, or came back maimed and injured as they sought to defend the things we hold dear as a nation.

The Anzacs were tough and intensely Australian. Young men were travelling overseas from a young country, keen to establish their own and their national credentials—credentials boosted by the thousands that joined up immediately Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914 such that we had a convoy of 30,000-plus Australians and New Zealanders, as then dominions, members of the Empire, on the water heading for England and subsequently diverted to Egypt by the beginning of November.

Anzac critics believe we were naive or perhaps over eager—even servile—to be so quick to volunteer but we were then, unflinchingly, part of the British Empire. Upwards of a quarter of our pioneering Anzacs were in fact born in Britain. Several per cent more were born in other corners of the Empire. But they knew they were going to this battle as Australians, and they knew that how they behaved under fire was going to establish Australia's reputation. We know very well how they handled themselves. They set a fantastic standard not just at the landing but throughout the eight months of the campaign. There was a marvellous indomitability to the way they clung to the beachhead that they had established for so long at such great cost as they created a legend that has stayed so fresh. Selfless mutual reliance, despite the fact that it could be and so very often was fatal, shorthanded as 'mateship', is perhaps the most important, most deeply embedded Anzac example that became, because of Gallipoli, the standard for what being Australian means. We look out for and after each other, whatever the price—and if there is a job to do, however tough it is, Australians can be counted upon.

My Anzac Day is usually spent attending as many commemorations in my electorate as I can, travelling from town to town—beginning at 4.28 or a little later with dawn services and then trying to visit four, five or six commemorations during the day. But this year I had the honour of representing the government at the national commemoration in Canberra. More than 100,000 people attended the pre-dawn commemoration, the biggest ever. It was certainly a moving event in the dawn light. It was an occasion on which Canberra—and, for that matter, cities and towns right across the country—provided a fitting tribute to our ANZAC forebears and a reminder that as a nation we will never forget.

Later, I witnessed the parade, attended the commemoration service and then, in the evening, attended the dusk service at the War Memorial. I commend the War Memorial for the way in which they have embraced this Anzac Centenary, with the projection of the names of all those who lost their lives in World War I onto the memorial each night. These new dusk services at the memorial are attended by significant numbers of people, as we pay tribute each day now to those who were lost in battle. So, to be in Canberra on Anzac Day was indeed very special.

My Anzac week had commenced little earlier, when I farewelled the ANZAC troop train re-enactment in Winton, on its way to Brisbane. The old steam train, loaded up with people who were dressed in period costume, took several days to make the journey, but in each and every town the communities came out to cheer, wave and relive the atmosphere of the trains full of troops going off to war in a bygone area.

On the morning before Anzac Day, in my home town of Maryborough, it was a special privilege to be present at dawn for the unveiling of a statue of Lieutenant Duncan Chapman. Duncan Chapman was the first Australian ashore at Anzac Cove. He was born in Maryborough, went to school in Maryborough, worked in a solicitor's office in Maryborough and joined the army in Maryborough. The statue of him in the park, near where he lived and worked, is a fitting tribute to this great Australian—a symbol of all of those who went ashore that morning.

Chapman was promoted to captain at Gallipoli and to major after the withdrawal, when the veterans of Gallipoli were divided up among the thousands of fresh troops then arriving in Egypt to form new Australian divisions in preparation for the Western Front. He was allocated to the 45th Battalion, which was part of the 4th Division, and was a major in D Company when the division went into the front line at Pozieres for our first major engagement in France, in August 1916. He arrived at the front line on 5 August and was killed the very next day. He survived the whole of the Gallipoli campaign but died on his first day of engagement in France.

Duncan Chapman is one of the prides of Maryborough and the district. I am delighted that he has been recognised in a statue that people visit every day and that, as a result of that memorial, they are better able to understand what Anzac Day means to us all.

At Gallipoli, there were 20,000 Australians wounded and almost 9,000 killed, but this motion before us asks us to remember also the brave soldiers of New Zealand, Great Britain, France, India and Newfoundland who fought alongside us in that battle. It is appropriate that we do so because many Australians, though well aware of our own involvement, do not necessarily appreciate that this was a battle involving not just the ANZACs and the Turks. In this motion we also acknowledge our then foes, the Turks. The relationship that has developed between Australia and Turkey, in which we recognise in each other's bravery, is, I think, a great tribute to both countries.

The qualities displayed by our people at Gallipoli from 25 April 1915, a century ago this year, gave us a legend worthy of its central role in the way we see ourselves as a nation. Lest we forget.

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