Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's tough losing, isn't it? And it's difficult for people to come to grips with it. I appreciate that. Perhaps Senator Henderson should just let it go.

Private George Bennett was a Gamilaraay man who grew up on Yuraba reserve in northern New South Wales. In 1916 he travelled to Armidale to enlist. At the time one in every four Aboriginal men who attempted to enlist was rejected on the basis of their race. He became one of the 850 Aboriginal men who served with the AIF during World War I. On 3 September 1916 he sailed to the Western Front. He witnessed some of the most terrible battles of the First World War: Bullecourt, Ypres and Passchendaele. He took part in the famous advance on Mont St Quentin, regarded as one of the finest achievements of the AIF. He was heavily gassed at Amiens and would struggle to breathe for the rest of his life. In 1919 he returned to the country he fought for to be treated as a second-class citizen and sent to the margins of a divided society.

His grandson, Len Waters, the first and probably only Aboriginal fighter pilot in World War II, took part in 41 strike missions against the Japanese in the Pacific. In fact, Len Water's story is an incredible story that is immortalised in a book that's well worth colleagues in the Senate reading.

On 23 September 1950 Private George Bennett was arrested for public drunkenness and he died that night in the cells at Mungindi Police Station. The coronial records point to the long-term effects of his exposure to mustard gas on the Western Front. Two days later he was buried in an unmarked grave in Mungindi cemetery.

Private Bennett's death came four decades before the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, but it is a familiar story, a lonely death in a dark cell for an Aboriginal man. As then Prime Minister Keating said, in a statement in the other chamber, 'The responsibility lies in large measure with entrenched institutionalised racism and discrimination. Those who died were victims of over two centuries of dispossession, prejudice and neglect.' As a nation we failed to give Private Bennett that most basic right, and many others, to die as a free man. That his grave still today goes unidentified and unrecognised by the nation he fought for remains a deep injustice.

I've made representations to the Department of Veterans Affairs to arrange for the proper commemoration of this grave. I've had encouraging early discussions with Moree Plains Shire Council about formally identifying and recognising all of the unmarked graves in Mungindi cemetery. My office is aware of at least one other Indigenous serviceman whose grave remains unmarked in that cemetery.

I want to thank the Mayor of Moree, Katrina Humphries, and wish her well in her final months after 13 years leading the Moree shire council. So many rural councils in New South Wales are led by strong women local mayors.

I want to acknowledge Private Bennett's grandson Mr Kevin Waters who is still alive, and lives in St George, at the age of 92. I want to acknowledge Joe Flick, a remarkable man from Dubbo, an Aboriginal man, who got a Churchill Fellowship to research unmarked graves of Aboriginal servicemen in Europe. He is doing remarkable work and has given me some very good advice. I also wish to recognise the efforts of Mungindi local Kevin Hobday who not only brought Private Bennett's story to my attention but has persistently ensured that it remains there.

Particular mention should be made of Aunty Noeline Briggs-Smith OAM, who's led the effort to identify more than 200 graves in the Moree cemetery, including the graves of four Indigenous ex-servicemen. Her decades of advocacy and research have created a model that should be adopted across the country. Of the 850 Aboriginal men who served in World War I, few were given the honour that they deserve. Their exclusion from our national story remains uncorrected.