House debates

Thursday, 25 October 2018

Ministerial Statements

Veterans

11:18 am

Photo of Stephen JonesStephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

In a few weeks' time we celebrate the centenary of Armistice in the First World War. Almost 62,000 Australians died in that war fighting for our freedom and in service of our nation. On the centenary of Armistice, we'll take this opportunity to remember some of those from the Illawarra and the Southern Highlands, in my electorate, who gave their lives for us. One of those was James David Pope, who was a corporal in the 1st Australian Machine Gun Company. James was just 18 years of age when he enlisted in January 1915. He was with his mate, Bert Stokes. They had previously worked as a stonemasons with his father, who operated the trachyte quarries on Mount Gibraltar—and if you know Mt Gibraltar, it overlooks Bowral in the Southern Highlands. On 20 July, just four days after his 20th birthday, James was killed during heavy shelling and gas attacks at the Somme. James' name appears on the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, one of 11,000 Australians commemorated there who died in France and have no known grave.

We also remember William Alexander Beach, who was born in Dapto to a famous family and attended Dapto Public School. He was one of 12 children and the son of a world champion sculler, who gives his name to an aged-care facility and to a district in Dapto today. William, a labourer, enlisted in 1914 at the age of 33. After arriving in Egypt, William was sent on to Gallipoli, landed on 25 April and was wounded in action on 22 July 1916 sometime later at Pozieres. William returned to Australia in October 1917 and was discharged medically unfit on 11 January 1918 as a result of his wounds.

We also remember Fredrick Crisp from Bowral. Fred was a corporal in the 1st Australian Light House Brigade—again, another famous brigade—and was among the first men in the Southern Highlands to enlist. He was just 19 when he signed up on 25 August 1914 and he landed at Gallipoli some months later. Fred was mentioned in despatches for his bravery, including his daring rescue of a wounded mate, Trooper Donovan. At Quinn's Post, considered the most dangerous place on ANZAC Cove, Fred volunteered to go out under heavy machine gun fire to within 20 yards of enemy trenches to carry his wounded mate to safety. Fred was one of 11 Southern Highland boys killed during the fierce Battle of Lone Pine in August 1915. These were very small communities 100 years ago. To have 11 boys killed in the same place on the same day was a devastating blow to these communities. In June 1916, Fred was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for conspicuous gallantry in the rescue of Trooper Donovan. I'd like to thank Linda Emery at the Story Centre at Berrima District Museum for her assistance in compiling some of these stories. They are some of many hundreds of stories that are available to visitors to the museum, which does a great job of keeping the stories of the district alive.

It is a great duty and an honour to attend services and events to remember those like James, Fred and William—those brave boys who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. I am also very pleased to say that in later years locals have taken up the stories of the women who were enlisted in the medical corps—nurses, assistants and other women—who travelled to these war zones, many of whom did not come back, who died of injury or disease and who did not receive until late the recognition that they deserve. Their stories and the stories of everyone else who suffered the consequences of this horrific war never fail to move us. We walk in their shoes, on the same streets and on the same soil, but our lives in 2018 are so different to those 100 years ago. We often take for granted the freedoms that were fought so hard to defend.

Shortly our focus will turn to commemoration of the Centenary of Armistice. Commemoration is just one of the ways way that we ensure our appreciation of the service and sacrifice made by all of those from this date until today, from those days and until today, the men and women of our armed service continues. I am pleased to have provided some support to the commemorative efforts of the Berrimah District Historical and Family History Society, for example, for their recent poppy seed project as a part of the Armistice commemorations.

In January 1920, Joseph Maiden, the director of the Sydney Botanic Gardens, received a parcel from France, sent by Ettie Rout, who was the secretary of the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood. The box contained poppy seeds gathered in the Somme Valley by school children of Villers-Bretonneux and came with a request that the seed be distributed to the relatives of Australian and New Zealand soldiers who had fallen on the battlefields and given their lives for France, so far from their native land. Joseph Maiden published a letter in TheSydney Morning Herald offering a small packet of the seed to relatives who had lost a loved one. Volunteers from the Berrimah District Historical and Family History Society have indexed the 1,077 names from the registers and have so far identified more than half of the soldiers for whom the seed was obtained and planted. Funding from their Armistice grant will go towards publishing a book which will tell some of the moving stories uncovered by the society's volunteers. The book will be widely available in Australia and at the Sir John Monash Centre at the Australian National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux, providing another tangible link to the town that is so significant in the commemoration of the Anzacs in France. The society will also encourage local schools to plant poppy seeds, and descendants of soldiers to plant those poppies as well.

The horrors of World War I ended a hundred years ago. Each year, we have done what we can to hold commemorations to ensure that their sacrifice is not lost. We stop for a minute's silence and remember them. We remember those who have died in service of their country. We remember those whose service changed them forever. We remember the parents who lost children and the children who lost parents. On 11 November, we'll mark the Centenary of Armistice. Many will take part in the one-minute silence to recognise the guns falling silent on the western front after more than four years of continuous warfare. It's important that we do what we can to take time to remember and reflect.

Earlier this week, I was very pleased to visit the Australian War Memorial to see the field of knitted poppies that have been gathered in a remarkable display to remember the fallen. I was pleased to learn that some of these, in fact several hundred of them, were knitted in nursing homes throughout the Southern Highlands and gathered by Brendan Nelson, who is a resident of my electorate and leads the War Memorial, so that they could be transported and planted amongst that display. The visual impact of these goes some way to help us comprehend how many gave their lives.

Since Federation, almost two million Australian service men and women have served our nation. We thank them and their families for their courage, their service and their sacrifice. As a member of parliament, it's a great honour and privilege to represent the people of the electorate of Whitlam and to seek to be worthy of the ideals of those who sacrificed so much for us. Our democracy, while far from perfect, is the expression of that freedom that they fought for.

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