Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's a dedicated group of volunteers in my home town of Wagga Wagga committed to the cause of erecting a statue to honour the service and sacrifice of our Light Horsemen. On Sunday they helped commemorate the 105th anniversary of the Battle of Romani, in which 20 locals fought. Of those, three never made it back to Australia. They were, as the Laurence Binyon's For the fallen decrees, 'staunch to the end against odds uncounted'—Offord William Duprez, only 19, a railway employee of Wagga Wagga; Richard Graham, 23, a station hand of Lake Albert; and George Nobbs, 20, a schoolteacher of Hay but originally from Whitton.

Police Inspector William Duprez and his wife, Joanna, sent three boys to the Great War. Lieutenant Arthur won a Military Cross for his bravery with the famed 55th Battalion in 1917. Corporal Hamilton, like Arthur, came home in 1919, but young William, who went to war with the 7th Light Horse Regiment, 5th Reinforcements, died of wounds three agonising days after being shot at the Battle of Bir el Mazar, just a month after the Battle of Romani. We owe a debt of gratitude to those three brave Riverina boys and all others who once wore and still wear a military uniform for and on our behalf, and that is why Dr Anne Flood, Mick Batchelor, Pat Leary, John Ploenges and others are working so hard to erect this statue.