Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tomorrow our nation will pause, as we have done every year for nearly a century, to remember those men and women who served Australia in times of war. In my own electorate, our RSL sub-branches will be holding services in Hunters Hill, Lane Cove, Chatswood, North Sydney and Lavender Bay.

Remembrance Day was born out of the horrors of the First World War. It marks that 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, when the gunfire that had thundered across Europe for four long years finally fell silent. The Great War affected every corner of Australia. Sixty thousand Australians never returned to the embrace of those who loved them. Wives were widowed, children were left without a parent, mothers and fathers lost those they loved and had reared for a finer destiny. The ambitions and hopes of an entire generation were left decimated on the battlefields of Europe and the Middle East.

In my electorate, around 10 per cent of the population were to serve in that war. Over a thousand men and women were never to return. The North Sydney community was determined to honour the service of those local residents who had made the ultimate sacrifice and, through the generosity of ordinary citizens, memorials were established across the North Shore to ensure that the names of those who had perished were never forgotten. The most significant example of their efforts was the North Sydney cenotaph in St Leonards Park and, in the words of one of the local members of parliament at the time, designed to 'bear mute testimony to the love and admiration of a grateful community.'

On this cenotaph, and on memorials from Hunters Hill to Chatswood, are recorded in bronze and stone the names of those who died. Tomorrow, we will see one of those memorials, the Lane Cove Roll of Honour, unveiled following its restoration. I congratulate Lane Cove Council and the Lane Cove RSL sub-branch, both of which, with the support of a federal grant, worked to see the roll properly restored. It records the names of 284 local residents from Lane Cove who died in the First World War. Each name represents a life that was extinguished well before their dreams were realised.

War knew no social boundaries. The offspring of the famous and the ordinary are commemorated. Proportionally, Australia had the highest casualties in the British Empire, and it was our soldiers who became our heroes of that war. They taught our nation how to show courage and how to endure hardship, in effect establishing the narrative of our national beginnings as a young Australia bound together through mateship and love of country. A century on, memories have faded, but tomorrow we will show we remember them all. We will also remember the service of the many more who have been prepared to fight in the defence of our country in wars and conflicts since the Great War and do so today. It is our opportunity to affirm that, as a nation, we will never forget.