Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In early April, people in my electorate gathered together to recognise Women of the War. Bendigo residents came together to commemorate the contribution of women to Australia's war efforts at the Bendigo Library on 17 April. The launch featured the Bendigo Youth Choir, performing their new song, 'Women of the War', written by the exhibition's organiser, Gail Godber. Gail told the group that the inspiration for the exhibition came from seeing documentaries about women's roles during the war. She reflected on the work of her mother and her aunt during the war. They worked the switchboards and were quite often the first to find out about deaths of men they had grown up with. Other women told their mother's story. Women in Bendigo were involved not just in telecommunications; they also worked for the Land Army, tending Bendigo's large agricultural area. Women also took up positions in the ammunition factories. Today we still have a proud Defence manufacturing presence in Bendigo.

The voices that we heard at the launch will stay with us. The women and the children who attended reminded us how important it is to remember the local stories of Bendigo. I was humbled to be asked to speak at the event and honoured to be able to acknowledge the role that the Bendigo Youth Choir throughout our Centenary of Anzac events. I would like to read to you—because I do not have the singing voice that the choir have—the words they sang at the launch of the exhibition. These words sum up the sentiment, the mood and the importance of this exhibition.

The Women of War

She would work alongside women, and fill the shoes of men, and when she had no more to give, she would get back up again. She laboured hard from dawn 'til dark, each day a hill to climb, she was a woman of the war years, a hero of her time.