Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence, I rise to acknowledge the death of Sapper Jamie Larcombe, who was from my electorate, and to join the House in paying my respects. Sapper Jamie Ronald Larcombe, of the 1st Combat Engineer Regiment, F Troop, was born 14 September 1989 at Kingscote on Kangaroo Island. It is a place he loved and it is a place that grieves for him today. My heart goes out to his loving parents, Steve and Tricia; his sisters, Ann-Marie, Emily and April; and his girlfriend, Rhiannon. I am forever humbled by the bravery of young Australians who risk it all on our behalf; I am humbled by Jamie. Those of us who are elected to this place make decisions to send young Australians, like Jamie, into harm’s way. We do not do so lightly; it is done with the full knowledge of the fate that may confront them. We do it because we believe that the cause we send them to is right and just. It is therefore our duty to honour this sacrifice with an increased resolve to the cause for which 23 young Australians have paid the ultimate price. It was Abraham Lincoln who best described this resolve when he said at Gettysburg:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain …

Sapper Jamie Larcombe, rest in peace.