Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

It is fitting that our parliament pause for a moment to honour the remarkable life of a great Australian, Frank McGovern. Frank McGovern is the last of the survivors of HMAS Perth, and he passed away overnight. Frank joined the Naval Reservists in 1939 at just 19 years of age. He was on board the HMAS Perth in 1942 when it was attacked by the Japanese invasion convoy. Frank survived the sinking, but 357 sailors ultimately perished. Among them was Frank's brother, Vince. Frank was ordered onto a Japanese destroyer and became a prisoner of war, working on the infamous Burma-Siam Railway.

In 1944, the order came for prisoners to be transported to the coal mines and factories of Japan. Frank was among the over 1,000 Australian and British prisoners forced into the cramped hull of Rakuyo Maru. In the early hours of 12 September 1944, the ship was hit by American torpedoes, unaware that Allied prisoners of war were present in the hull of that ship.

This was one of Australia's worst maritime disasters. One thousand five hundred POWs perished in the sinking, including 543 Australians. Frank survived that attack—think about that; he survived two sinkings—and located a lifeboat left behind by the Japanese. For three days, he and 30 other soldiers survived in this lifeboat. By the third day, with nothing, Frank and his crew were ordered at gunpoint to board a Japanese ship, becoming a prisoner of war for the second time. He endured months of work in the factories at Kawasaki camp in Tokyo before the US commenced the deadliest air raid in history, with 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs dropped over 16 square miles of Tokyo.

Frank was moved to a new camp only to narrowly survive another bombing. This one fractured his spine. In Shebora hospital, he was warned about the danger to incapacitated prisoners. Frank managed to stand and walk at pace for the Japanese guards. He told them the story about how some of his colleagues would go off for what was termed 'surgery' and be drained of their blood because it was being used for the Japanese soldiers who were injured.

One of his colleagues and comrades told him that this was what was going on. So, somehow, with a fractured spine, he managed to stand and get out of the hospital in order to avoid the dreadful fate that some of his comrades were dealt. He returned to the camp and continued to work, somehow, because those who weren't able to work were not able to survive. He was one of the first Australians to be repatriated back to Sydney after the war ended by our friends, the United States. He arrived in Sydney on 15 September 1945.

After his family reached out to me, I had the extraordinary privilege of meeting with Frank on 22 April, just before Anzac Day this year, and it was covered by the Daily Telegraph that day. He was, at that time, at the Eastern Suburbs Private Hospital. He was a bit upset, because Frank, at 103 years of age, was still living at home by himself and cooking for himself. He told me the secret to a long life was that he drank a bottle of wine every day, and he insisted, even though it was a reasonably early hour of the morning, that I have a beer with him, and I did that.

He was amazing, an extraordinary Australian as part of our greatest generation—a man of deep modesty, gentle humour and powerful optimism. As I am a Roosters fan, he gave me complete curry about rugby league and how Easts were a much better team—of course, he still called them Easts—than South Sydney. His family were around him on that day. One of the great privileges of being Prime Minister is that sometimes you get to do some things like that without TV cameras. You get to just say thank you to a great Australian.

After all that he'd endured, when he went through his story—a prisoner of war twice and a survivor of two torpedo attacks—he said, 'I've been lucky in life.' He told me that every Anzac Day—he didn't march anymore; he used to, but he ran out of mates—he thought about his family and spent the day with them.

Frank McGovern lived to see what his service and his mates' sacrifice meant to all Australians. We salute his life today. He's gone but, like all who have served our great country in uniform in the past and today, he will never be forgotten. Lest we forget.

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