Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in this adjournment debate to talk about the lead-up to Anzac Day in my own constituency of Maranoa.

First of all: 25 April 1915 gave birth to a legend—a legend that we as Australians like to identify with. It defines our national spirit and, in many ways, our national character. It was born on that day, in that very early dawn on 25 April 100 years ago.

I have to say that the principles that we identify with so much with the Anzac spirit or the Anzac legend are those wonderful characteristics of what it is to be Australian. They are what they were and what they demonstrated in the early dawn that day: courage to race ashore, regardless of the risk. They were determined to get ashore and to get as high as they could, because they were told they had to secure trenches. They had to get as high as they could to get a footing on that peninsula.

But above all else, it was about mateship. When they went ashore it was not about themselves but always about their mates all around them. They knew that they could rely on their mates should things go wrong. That enduring quality of the Anzacs—that quality of mateship—is the way that so many of us Australians think of our mates, unconsciously, whether that is on the sporting field or elsewhere. I suppose we could even say that we find mates around this place. That spirit of mateship was a quality born on that day in 1915.

The spirit of the Anzacs and the Anzac legend is something that lives with our serving forces today. It is not something that was born and died; it is something that lives on. Each and every one of those who have served so proudly since that day continue to serve in the same spirit as the Anzacs. I salute all of them.

It is our national possession forever. On Anzac Day this year—even particularly in the lead-up to Anzac Day and the centenary of that landing at Gallipoli—I was so proud to see so many people turning up at dawn services, young and old, in record numbers and in small communities. Here in our national capital, there was a record crowd estimated to be 128,000—numbers that we have never, ever seen before. It says something about how Australians regard Anzac Day as our national day of commemoration.

I want to talk about some of the programs that we funded in my own electorate through the grant program. I commend all those people who put so much effort into the commemorations in small and large communities. One of those was the launch of a book at Wallumbilla, east of my home town of Roma. It is a two-volume series on those who enlisted from Wallumbilla in the First World War, done by Ros Stemler and entitled Boys from the Bush. There was the World War I display that I had the great privilege of opening in Goondiwindi, done through Care Goondiwindi and Tracey MacDonald, who works there. They catalogued the records and photographs of 500 of those who enlisted in the First World War. They brought forward memorabilia from friends and relatives. It now stands as a great record.

There was the troop train at Winton—and I want to acknowledge the Deputy Prime Minister, who did the opening, and also my colleague Ken O'Dowd, who developed the original concept for that troop train that went from Winton all the way through to Brisbane. And, of course, there was the More than a Name exhibition at the Waltzing Matilda Centre—a World War I exhibition. What a wonderful exhibition that is—of course, in the birthplace of Waltzing Matilda. Indeed, we all know that Banjo Paterson himself enlisted in the First World War and served in Egypt.

There was a great poetry competition in my electorate. The junior winner was Dominic Faggotter, who is a School of Distance Education student from Longreach. The senior winner was Hannah Debnam, a year 8 student at St Joseph's School in Stanthorpe. What wonderful poems they wrote. They were judged by Madam Speaker, and I acknowledge the wonderful contribution she made in what was a very difficult task.

For me, attending the dawn service at Scots PGC in Warwick was also another moving moment in recognition of the legend of the Anzacs. (Time expired)