Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Cormann. The Crown Prince of Belgium visited Australia last year and was kind enough to provide a couple of people for me to meet with to talk about our tour. I would like to thank Mr Jean Corleone, the director of remembrance and communication at the Belgian National Institute for Veterans and Victims of War, and Mr Paul Breyne, the commissioner general for the coordination of the commemoration of World War I and former mayor of West Flanders. They were absolutely fantastic to us. You can take this back, Senator Cormann: the Belgians were wonderful. They are wonderful people. Their memories of and thanks to Australia are not forgotten. They treated us like royalty, I can tell you. They escorted us around Ypres. They could not do enough for us. I warned them. I said, 'If you get too good at this, I will be back next year.' Hence that is what is happening. I am going back. I am just giving a heads up to the sponsors. I will be back, knocking on your doors, saying, 'Here we go again.'

I must say a very special thankyou to Didier Pontzeele. I have invited Didier to come to Australia. I will be funding the trip for Didier. I am going to do a function with Didier so that Western Australians can hear of the fine work that he does. Didier has a wonderful story to tell about his family in World War I. I am not going to spoil that. You will have to buy a ticket and come to the function. Didier will also explain his role. As I said, he refers to those fallen soldiers as 'his boys'.

We were with Didier on the last day in his hometown of Ghent where we had a couple of hours to explore that wonderful town. Didier and I were talking when his phone rang. He took the phone call, spoke for about three minutes and then hung up and said, 'Sorry, I had to take that. We have just found another set of remains. I'll let you know.' A couple of days later he said, 'It is a British soldier.' About a week or so later when we were back in Perth, he rang and said, 'You are not going to believe this: we have just found another Australian.' So Didier will be coming. To Didier I say, 'Mate, we can't wait to have you out here. We will spoil you. We will show you the same hospitality that you afforded us. You will be directing us around Belgium again next year I can guarantee you, mate, because we will be there.'

I would also like to make a very quick plug for the Department of Veterans' Affairs. I have sat through senate estimates where I have heard the Public Service attacked for going off to ceremonies overseas. If it were not for the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the 4,000 Australians who were at Villers-Bretonneux would not have received the fantastic service they did. Congratulations to the department. I want to thank the minister, Minister Snowdon, for his assistance too. I congratulate the department. When it was three degrees in Villers-Bretonneux, that cup of coffee was very warm, and there were 4,000 on the day—thank you. (Time expired)