Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Maranoa on this motion and other members for their contributions. This is an opportunity for us to give thanks for finally resolving these issues, which have been outstanding for so long, across effectively three governments. It has taken that long. It began with the initial appointment of the independent panel by the Howard government in October 2007 and stretched through the terms of reference and processes under the Rudd-Gillard governments and through to this final resolution.

We have heard the comments that have been made about the way our veterans were treated when they returned, and it was appalling. We have a very famous Vietnam veteran in Bega, in my electorate, who was the Frankie from the song I Was Only 19. It was a privilege to launch the book by Steve Strevens about that song in Bega with Frankie there. Frankie had severe injuries, of course, from that incident. One of the things described in the book is the circumstance where he and other veterans from Heidelberg hospital were going out to a movie in town, and a group of demonstrators saw them being disembarked from the bus with their wheelchairs. One of the young lady demonstrators came up and rubbed a pie into the head of Frankie. One can only speculate on what was going through her head, but, Frankie being Frankie, he responded, 'You forgot the sauce,' which is a tribute to his resilience as an individual. But it is an illustration of how poorly we treated those veterans.

So it was wonderful to see this happen. I really am glad from a personal point of view, as I was the parliamentary secretary for honours and awards and was involved in the establishment of the Defence Honours and Awards Tribunal so that we could resolve these long, historic issues. It was pleasing for me to see in the first wave of resolutions that we achieved in getting Lieutenant Colonel Harry Smith his Star of Gallantry and that the two very able surviving platoon commanders, Lieutenant Dave Sabben and Lieutenant Geoff Kendall, were able to get their Medal for Gallantry awards. It was a great privilege and pleasure to be with Dave Sabben just recently, when he was down at the Merimbula RSL at our traditional Light Horse dining-in night. He spent quite some time making sure the history of the battle was communicated to these next generations coming through, and he did a wonderful job of that. It just showed the professionalism at that tactical level that was demonstrated in that perilous situation, where their tactical skills enabled what were the survivors of Delta Company to survive that crucial engagement.

That engagement and the whole experience of the task force in Phuoc Tuy province left to us a great legacy, which was to serve us well in the multiple deployments that we have served in since then that shared the nature of that type of operation—being in the stabilisation of counterinsurgency situations. I studied it very deeply as we moved in with the 1st Battalion to Bay province in Somalia. Of course we took that experience forward again to the Bobonaro district in East Timor, to Al Muthanna province in Iraq, and finally, most recently, into Oruzgan province in Afghanistan. All of these lessons that were hard fought and hard won in Vietnam have served us very well ever since then.

It was really wonderful to see Adrian Roberts properly recognised too. Adrian lives in this region and has also been a keen participant in our dining-in nights down in Merimbula. His role in the battle was not well appreciated—in fact, the whole significance of the battle was not well appreciated until recent times. I do congratulate the tribunal and the government for finally bringing these matters to their complete resolution, after the various phases it has been through. Harry Smith is a man of great honour and great courage and has great personal commitment to his soldiers. It is wonderful to see some sort of resolution and closure being brought for him through these experiences. I say to those proud veterans, and to all of our veterans: wear your decorations with pride. I ask all Australians, whenever they see these veterans in the street or at services, to go up, shake their hands and thank them for the service they have rendered to this nation and for the proud traditions that they maintained.

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