Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to acknowledge the member for Kingston for moving this motion and, also, all the speakers who have spoken on it this morning. The speeches have been moving and they have been powerful and, again, I congratulate the member for Kingston for drawing this motion to our attention. This Friday, 11 November, is Remembrance Day. The day is the anniversary of the armistice that brought to an end the carnage and the chaos of the First World War, and it is important that we remember it. We remember the war even though it was fought by a very different Australia. It was fought by an Australia that was just 14 years old, an Australia with a population less than five million—nearly a fifth of what it is today. Yet, today's Australia is indelibly forged by the terrible sacrifice of its former self; the imprint of the First World War survives to this day.

I recently joined the Australian Garden History Society ACT Monaro Riverina Branch to unveil their 'Planting memories' project in Weston Park in Yarralumla. The project features three commemorative panels remembering a different side of Canberra's wartime contribution. The connection between Canberra and the First World War runs deep; 350 men from the Canberra region served in the war. Many came to work on the construction of Canberra, which was named as the national capital just a year before the outbreak of the Great War. Some of the park's beautiful trees were planted by Charles Weston and his staff during the years of the First World War. Today they serve as a lasting legacy to the Canberra community that gave so much a century ago.

The author Clive James once referred to the First World War as 'a harvest of our tallest poppies'. As a conflict, it holds a terrible record as our costliest. It is why the 11th day of the 11th month is not dedicated to celebration but dedicated to remembrance because we must remember. We must tally its cost and we must bear witness to its scars. As Armistice Day approaches, the day itself retreats further and further from us. Increasingly, we recognise its significance in the abstract. We imagine its horror, the way we imagine how the water of the beaches of Gallipoli must have smelt or the way the exploding of shrapnel must have sounded. We hear its description, but without an experience of our own, we are forced to cobble together an impression of the experience out of others who have already lived through it. So while what we remember is inexact and approximate, we know it is important. Our memories of the cost of war have not been dulled by time. We remember those tallest poppies. We remember what we lost, how we lost it and why. Our young nation lost so many, far from the red soil of home. Some returned to an unrecognisable Australia and lived long lives struggling for peace. All made a remarkable and profound sacrifice in defence of their country.

Their sacrifice is honoured by a grateful nation in a safer and more peaceful world. The world may never see war like Australia did 100 years ago. If we do not, it will be a good thing, a very good thing. Those who served in the First World War exist now only in memory. As their stories of the Great War fade from living memory into history, they become abstract. We write down these stories to externalise them so that the memory of the war can survive the mortality of the warriors. It is important that those memories persist. It is important that when we say 'lest we forget', we do so because how we perceive the world and how we act in it are products of how and what we remember.

To forget the destructive chaos of war is to fail to learn from our failure to prevent it. So I say today, as I will on this and every 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, that at the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them. We pause to reflect on those Australians who have died in wars and armed conflicts. We remember those who served in the Boer War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and in Afghanistan and Iraq. We remember the peacekeepers. We remember their families and those whose hearts were broken and their lives shattered—permanently changed by their loss. We pause to reflect, as we remember, and we pause as lest we forget.

See this speech in context