Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the Minister for Defence's letter to the President of the Senate regarding Teddy Sheean. Denis Victor Reedman was a telegraphist on the HMAS Armidale in 1942. On 1 December 1942 Denis was with John Roberts in the radio room of HMAS Armidale. He heard his skipper yell, 'Get down.' That's when the torpedos hit. Denis and John weren't injured in that strike. One room over everyone was killed—gone in a split second, just like that. He said, 'All you could hear was crying, young men dying, scared and calling out for their mums. The ship is starting to list and it's taking on water fast. Denis scrambles to the outside of the ship. Japanese aircraft are firing machine guns at the fleeing crew. He said, 'It was mayhem, it was chaos and it was like hell on earth.' John said to him, 'Don't be a fool. Come with me.' They run back to the ship, towards the ship's anti-aircraft cannon. Everyone is trying to get away. Bullets are screaming through the sky, tearing holes through the steel and people's skin. Denis sees some men missing their legs and some missing their jaw. He sees ordinary seaman Edward Teddy Sheean running the wrong way. Teddy sees the operator of the anti-aircraft cannon is dead. He straps himself onto it instead. He opens fire on a Japanese fighter and it's blown out of the sky. The two other planes notice what's happening. They stop firing on survivors who are floating helplessly in the water of the Timor Sea. They train their fire on the 18-year-old kid from Tassy, but Teddy keeps firing. The ship is almost completely under water. The waves are rising around him, the machine guns are blazing, and he keeps right on going on. Bullets start hitting him and he's wounded badly. His leg is open. He can't stand anymore, but he just keeps right on going and another plane bursts into flames. While he's firing on the enemy, they're focused on him, so the crew is scrambling to safety. Teddy is losing blood and the water is rising. Everything he has to give, he gives to keep firing.

In the space of less than a few minutes, it's over. It's all over. The ship is falling into the sea; the stern high in the air and the propellers still turning. There were 140 men who woke up that day hoping to be alive at the end of it. Teddy woke up wanting the same thing. Denis died in 1999, 57 years after Teddy did. In that time he left the Navy, he got a job, he had kids and he lived a life. In his own words, Teddy Sheean gave him that life.

The Prime Minister says some reviews say Teddy deserves the Victoria Cross and some reviews say he doesn't. That's dishonest, because it misleads you into thinking all views of the same, and that's rubbish. We've only had one full, open examination of all the evidence. We've only had one that's opened up all the books, all the evidence and all the witnesses and asked the only question we need to ask: does Teddy Sheean deserve Australia's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross? Only one review has looked at all the questions. It came back and said: 'Yes. Absolutely, 100 per cent and then some.' Every single expert said that Teddy not only met the threshold for the Victoria Cross but far exceeded it. They said that Teddy's actions are the standard to which all men and women of the modern Navy hold themselves to. They aspire to it.

And the Prime Minister said: 'Well, who cares. Forget about what they say. Teddy gets nothing.' He took the experts' opinion and he ignored it, because he didn't like what the experts had to say. Now he's called in a different bunch of experts and asked them to have another shot. This time he's chosen his own experts. He's picked them himself. Maybe that's how you get the answer you want. But this isn't going away. You can't hide from this. You can't just say that it doesn't matter whether or not Teddy deserves the Victoria Cross. You can't just say: 'Too bad, so sad. Move on.' The motto of the HMAS Sheean is 'fight on'. That's the difference between us on Teddy's side and you on the Prime Minister's side. We have the will to fight and we will fight and continue the fight. I'll tell you what, we're going to win, because you on the other side will end up folding because you'll have no choice. You'll fold in shame, and, when you do, there will be an 18-year-old kid from Lower Barrington looking down on you and saying, 'What took you so bloody long?' I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.