Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Anzac Centenary Local Grants is a fantastic thing program and has been strongly welcomed across my electorate. There has been a process where we have been able to provide $125,000 and we have brought the RSL leadership from across the electorate together to discuss and look at how we can remember our past. Oddly enough, we have had over $400,000 worth of applications into this program.

Those who fail to remember the past will repeat those mistakes in the future. I remember when, as a young child in primary school, a man by the name of Ellis Smelley came to our school. Of course, we thought it was a great joke, being kids in primary school, that a guy whose surname was Smelley came to our school, so we had some fun with that. But he sat there and talked to us. He told us, and me as a young child, what it was like to sit on a ship and observe the Anzac landing on Anzac Day. Even now, all those years later, I still remember that conversation. It is very important that we remember the past. Actually, out of his own money he paid for a plaque to be placed in the garden in the school.

With this program, we have rolled out 'Remembering the past'. The electorate of Mallee has a very strong link to the First World War.

We have a town called Robinvale. It is the only sister city to Villers-Bretonneux. It was called Robinvale in reference to Robin Cuttle, who was killed in the battle of Villers-Bretonneux. His family named the town, then a small hamlet, Vale Robin—Robinvale. When you drive into Villers-Bretonneux in northern France, you will see that this is the sister city of Robinvale. When you visit the school, you will see that the school in Villers-Bretonneux was built by the schoolchildren of Victoria in a penny drive. So it is quite a strong linkage.

I have walked through the cemetery at Villers-Bretonneux. There you can see where the Germans were, advancing on Amiens, and where the attack was. The Germans were quite successful in their offensive but were stopped only by the determination of the Australian 13th and 15th Brigades, who fought valiantly. Oddly enough, it was on 25 April 1918—a number of years after the Anzac landing but with the same date; it was referred to by the German army as their blackest day—that 12,000 Australian soldiers died in that battle.

For an interesting quirk of history, one of the people who is buried in the Villers-Bretonneux cemetery is Ned Kelly's nephew.

The Anzac Centenary Local Grants has been a great program. It does not glorify war; it highlights to the Australian people the sacrifice that made during the First World War. We need to remember that the Australian population was only about four million, and yet 416,809 Australian men enlisted, over 60,000 were killed, and 150,000 were wounded, gassed or taken prisoner. It shows that among human tragedy, there is also bravery. It shows that Australians have always contributed to making the world a more secure and peaceful place.

As we move towards the 100th anniversary of the battle of Villers-Bretonneux in 2018, I have a vision that I might be able to take some students from the Robinvale school—a school, incidentally, that has 415 children and 54 first languages. It is one of the most multicultural schools in Australia. I have a vision that I might take some of those students across to Villers-Bretonneux so they can understand that the very multicultural town that they live in has been built on a sobering history in partnership with the broader world, and that they must remember. It is a great program. I commend the minister, Michael Ronaldson, for rolling out the Anzac Centenary program as we move into 2015. I hope that people remember the war not to glorify war but to learn the lessons from history so that we do not repeat them in the future.