Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works first report of 2021 on the Australian War Memorial Development Project. My great-great-grandfather fought and died for this country. He was awarded a military medal in World War I. He was never to return; he's still buried overseas. Not only was he oppressed in his own country; he then went to fight for the same country that oppressed him and sent him and our family onto a mission reserve, where we couldn't speak our language, we weren't free to roam, we weren't allowed to work—and the list goes on.

The Australian War Memorial is a shrine, a museum and an archive whose main purpose is to commemorate the sacrifice of those who have died in a war as well as creating an understanding of this country's wartime experience. This memorial is being given half a billion dollars for refurbishment, and this report recommends that it go ahead. I note that this proposal has been slammed as wasteful by others, particularly as it would involve the demolition of Anzac Hall. I will let others speak to what the proposal to redevelop the memorial includes, but I'm here to talk about what it doesn't include. It does not include anything of significance about the Frontier Wars. The Medical Association for the Prevention of War made a submission to this committee's inquiry where they said:

A proposed huge redevelopment of the AWM which continues to pay marginal attention to the Frontier Wars, the conflicts that have had a profound and lasting impact on the descendants of this land's original inhabitants, simply magnifies the deep stain of colonial dispossession on our national story.

'The Frontier Wars' refers to the conflicts between our people and the colonial settlers during the British invasion of this continent, beginning not long after the landing of the First Fleet in 1788, with the latest clashes happening as late as 1934. It is estimated that at least 40,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men, women, boys, girls and babies were killed. They were murdered. The very foundation of this country was paid for by our blood. Thousands of schoolchildren visit the War Memorial every year. There are also thousands of overseas visitors who go to the War Memorial to learn about our history as a country, and each and every single one of them will leave the memorial none the wiser about what happened here. The Hawkesbury, Bathurst and Nepean wars are not explored. The wars on the Liverpool Plains are not commemorated. The Tasmanian Black War is not explained. None of the massacres are properly listed or commemorated.

How can the War Memorial tell the story of this country without starting from the very beginning? How can we live in peace and expect peace when we can't even tell the truth? Many of the people watching or listening to this debate today are not aware of the brutality of colonisation and the wars fought right here on these shores. At the dawn service on Invasion Day, 26 January, we commemorated the Convincing Ground massacre, a massacre of approximately 200 Gunditjmara people, my people, who were brutally massacred by British whalers. The Convincing Ground is probably the first recorded massacre site in Victoria—one of, sadly, hundreds. The site of the massacre was in Portland Bay in western Victoria. The dispute arose over a beached whale. Our people asserted their right to the whale as traditional food, as we have done for thousands of years on our country, except British whalers wanted the whale for themselves, so they opened fire on our people, killing all but two of us. The Convincing Ground massacre was part of the wider Eumeralla Wars between British colonisers and Gunditjmara people. Up to 6,500 Gunditjmara people were killed in the Eumeralla wars. That's over 10 times the number of Australian lives that were tragically lost in the American war in Vietnam. Where's our memorial? What, don't we matter? Really? Where in this redevelopment are our people honoured, our sacrifices talked about and our history shared, which is your history too?

I feel sorry for every visitor to the memorial, because they will leave there none the wiser as to the truth of what happened. This government continues to perpetrate the lie. Let's be honest, this country's very foundation was based on a lie: terra nullius. It's not like this issue didn't come up at the committee inquiry. It's just that, so many people in this place, from the Prime Minister all the way down, would rather see us as a monument and not for who we are—a proud people who are still here, a people who were killed in a bloody conflict, right here under our feet.

This is no more evident than when any visitor who wants to learn about our history just walks into the memorial courtyard. In that beautiful courtyard, they will see 26 sandstone gargoyles: a kookaburra, a wombat, an emu, a frog, a carpet snake, and a gargoyle of an Aboriginal man and an Aboriginal woman. Really? The War Memorial of this place is happy to have gargoyles for our people in the memorial courtyard, with dirty rainwater pouring out of our mouths. But they will not commemorate and tell the truth about the frontier wars in the galleries inside.

These gargoyles were part of the original building in 1941, and they're still there. Despite spending half a billion dollars on redeveloping the memorial, the gargoyles will stay. I can't believe I'm saying this! Don't you get it? Don't you understand? We are the world's oldest living culture. We're not just from this country; we are of this country. The way the memorial treats us is indicative of how you view us. The Aboriginal gargoyles are products of the frontier wars. They are the only representation visitors will see of the wars that happened here and of a violent history of colonisation and of stolen lands, lives, children and identities.

The War Memorial is happy to have us silent, set in stone, in our place, but will not recognise how many of us died here at the end of a British gun or bayonet. A Senate committee in 2015 heard that the gargoyles would be refurbished and that the project would cost $1.6 million. Those gargoyles are still there. The government spent $1.6 million redoing them. It's shameful that I have to come here to the Senate to tell everyone that we are not monuments, that our culture is not set in stone, but we are here and we ain't going anywhere, and it's time to tell the truth in this country. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.