Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I want to go to clause 4(3) of the bill, just to reinforce the point that you cannot say that a national memorial is the same as a military memorial of national significance. You cannot say that black is white and expect it to be accepted. According to the explanatory memorandum:

... the memorial must be owned or managed by a State or Northern Territory authority and that authority must be responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the memorial, including financial responsibility. The authority must also be responsible for any refurbishment of the memorial.

You will notice it says that it must be owned by a state or the Northern Territory authority, because it specifically excludes the ACT. It says:

The Australian Capital Territory ... is excluded from this Act because national memorials in the ACT are approved under the National Memorials Ordinance 1928. The Ordinance applies only to National Land within the ACT. The Ordinance cannot apply to memorials located outside the ACT and this Act cannot apply to memorials located in the ACT.

In other words, it is stating very clearly that the two are not the same but are different, and it makes that difference for a very good purpose. In the ACT, the Commonwealth does pay for the ongoing upkeep. The bill makes it very specific. Part 3 of the bill says the Commonwealth is not responsible for declared memorials, which it is responsible for in Canberra under the old ordinance. This bill does not amend the ordinance. This bill will stand alone. Clause 9 in part 3, entitled ‘Miscellaneous’, says:

The Commonwealth does not have any responsibility (financial or otherwise) for a memorial merely because a declaration has been made under section 4 in relation to the memorial.

That is very clear. But a memorial that is declared under the ordinance of 1928 in the ACT is the responsibility of the federal government, whereas this bill specifically says that the War Memorial will not, must not and cannot be the responsibility of the federal government. I would ask the minister to reply.

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