Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia's story has been written by the courage and sacrifice of the men and women who have worn our nation's uniform. They have served in war and peace, at home and abroad, carrying the weight of our flag and our values. Every one of them deserves to be remembered not only for the battles they fought but for the lives that they built after returning home. More than 103,000 Australians gave their lives in service and countless others came back bearing scars that never truly healed. Too often their memory fades over time. Across our cemeteries the resting places of too many veterans are unmarked and forgotten. Their stories and their service risks being lost to history. That is where the Australian Remembrance Army comes in, led by volunteers Katrina Trevethan, an expert genealogist, and Cate Walker, a graduate in cemetery practice.

These amazing women give their time and energy to restore dignity to those who served. They identify unmarked graves, research their records and ensure that as many veterans as possible are properly recognised for their contribution to this country. In Cleveland Cemetery, within my electorate, their work has uncovered 19 previously unmarked graves of servicemen from the world wars. The discoveries bring the total number of known veterans buried there to 421. It is slow, careful work, but it matters deeply. It builds off the amazing work that they've undertaken at Lutwyche and Brisbane cemeteries, where they have located approximately 1,500 World War I veterans in unmarked graves. To proceed with marking a veteran's grave, permission must be sought from a confirmed descendant. To give you a sense of the scale of this effort, one veteran buried in the Cleveland Cemetery had no children. The researchers therefore had to trace the lines through 12 of their siblings until a great-great-grand-nephew and a great-great-great-grand-niece were both located living in Canada. It is painstaking work undertaken on a voluntary basis to ensure that these heroes are given the honour that they deserve.

Through the research work of the Australian Remembrance Army, they've also uncovered many unmarked graves that should have been commemorated by Veterans' Affairs many years ago through longstanding commitments to provide headstones to any veterans who succumbed to the injuries that they sustained during their war service. It is a shame that it takes the efforts of volunteer researchers to point out to DVA where they have failed to achieve their mission over so many decades. Other groups across the country involved in this work include Forgotten Diggers Inc., the Longreach Archival and Historical Research Group, Friends of Toowong Cemetery, the Waroona Historical Society, the WA 10th Light Horse Organisation, the Friends of Balmoral Cemetery and the Headstone Project.

Under the former coalition government, funding was provided to help groups like the Remembrance Army honour these veterans properly. A total of $3.7 million was committed after a successful pilot that placed more than 1,100 markers on unrecognised graves. Before the 2022 election, Labor promised to match that funding, but once in government they walked away from that promise. Their first budget reduced the amount to $1.5 million over four years, and it has since been cut again to just $437,000. To put that in perspective, only $18,000 was spent last year to mark 42 graves. While the latest round of funding from the Albanese government delivered $107,000 in funding to mark the graves of 182 First World War veterans, it is too little and far too few. At that rate, it would take the federal government 280 years to finish recognising all the veterans of the First World War who lie in unmarked graves, and that is before we even begin to consider the tens of thousands from the Second World War who also deserve that recognition. This is not the respect that these veterans deserve.

The most concerning aspect uncovered by these researchers is not the quantum of unmarked veteran graves or the slow pace of government to resolve the issue. The most concerning aspect uncovered by these researchers is a sanctioned historical government program that deliberately stripped veterans' graves of their official headstones in the name of administrative convenience. Experts in the field have advised me that, halfway through the last century, the former Anzac Office of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission engaged in a program of decommissioning the headstones of Australian veterans to reduce maintenance costs. Under this program, original upright headstones were removed and replaced with simple tin plaques. Some, however, remain completely unmarked. I contend that this policy failed to treat these veterans with the dignity and respect that they deserved. This is one of those episodes in our national story where we see government decisions made with what were believed to be good intentions only for history to reveal them as mistakes.

The maintenance of headstones for the graves of Australian service men and women, people who fought in the service of their country, should never have been reduced to an accounting exercise. I wrote to the veterans affairs minister earlier this year in the interests of transparency and historical accountability and sought answers on this practice. I asked: When did this program begin, and when did it end? What was the policy rationale behind this program? Are there any documents detailing the decision-making processes? How many headstones were removed, and how many tin plaques were installed in their place? Can a list of affected graves, including the names and locations, be made available to assist researchers in their commemorative work? The minister's response, while polite, was disappointingly bureaucratic. It confirmed what many have suspected—that the practice did occur, that it was known to successive governments and that it was quietly signed off on by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in 1972. What it did not provide was accountability. There was no figure on how many graves were affected, no explanation of the criteria for declaring a grave unmaintainable and no evidence that families were properly consulted and that their consent was ever sought.

Freedom of information requests made by advocates in the veterans' graves space have also failed to uncover the scale or specifics of this practice. I don't blame the minister or the government for this. They haven't provided clear answers, because the information just isn't available. It seems to me that the historic records of this practice, the practice of Australian governments destroying Australian veterans' headstones, have not been maintained over the decades. It leaves us with an inherent challenge. We don't know how many were affected or when or where this occurred. It will take extensive efforts to get to the bottom of it.

We cannot undo what has been done, but we can make it right. I'm calling on the Commonwealth to formally acknowledge that this practice was a historical wrong. It should commission a full public report into the practice of grave decommissioning, publish a full register of affected veterans and where possible restore the original commemorations to their proper resting places. These Australians did their duty for this country. It is time their country did its duty for them. This issue is of great concern to many in my community, who believe that preserving veterans' memorials is a matter of national respect and duty. Our veterans deserve better than to be forgotten in unmarked earth. They deserve a nation that remembers their service with pride in life and in death.

I also contend that the government needs to go beyond just correcting this historical wrong. I'm also calling for the Commonwealth to supercharge the Marking (First World War) Private Graves Grants Program so that we can have all graves commemorated by 2028—the 110th anniversary of the Armistice. We should commit ourselves to a marking Second World War private graves grants program that could see all unmarked veterans graves completed by the centenary of the Second World War in 2039.

To achieve this, we must back our words with real support. Volunteer groups across the country are already doing the painstaking work of identifying, researching and restoring forgotten graves, but they're doing it on a shoestring. If we are serious about completing this task by 2039, the Commonwealth must invest properly in these community driven efforts. Funding should be made available not just for the physical commemoration of the graves but for the research, verification and administration that underpin it. This would represent a step change in pace and ambition, delivering in next 15 years what the current approach would take many decades to finish.

No matter whether they fell in service or not, every Australian who fought to defend our nation deserves to be honoured. Australia's promise to those who served has never been just about medals or parades or ceremonies once or twice a year. It is about remembrance—real, lasting remembrance—written in stone and carried in the national consciousness. These men and women did not hesitate when their country called. The least we can do is ensure that their names are not lost to time or bureaucracy. Let us be the generation that corrects this wrong. Let us ensure that every Australian who fought in these wars is known, remembered and honoured.