During my first decade in the NSW Parliament, I witnessed the ‘acknowledgement of the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today and pay my respects to Elders past and present and emerging’ grow from a respectful tribute to a compulsory utterance at the opening of an envelope by public officials who had never ventured west of Glebe.
Whilst I supported the concept of the acknowledgement I thought it would be enhanced if we also acknowledged our veterans who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect the traditional owners of the land from tyranny.
I therefore moved that the President of the Parliament ‘acknowledge the supreme sacrifice made by our Anzacs who sacrificed their lives in defence of the freedom we enjoy in New South Wales today’ after prayers each sitting day.
It was approved with the support of both major parties.
In view of the furore caused by the Welcome To Country at our recent Anzac Dawn Service, the inclusion of such an acknowledgement of the sacrifice of our veterans after every acknowledgement and WTC might take some of the heat out of the issue, which is currently causing some unseemly division.
The debate reminded us that we have much to be proud of beginning with the outstanding leadership of General Sir John Monash and the fighting qualities of his Anzacs on the Western Front in WW1. For example did did you know that:
‘Monash commanded an army more than two and a half times the size of the British Army under the Duke of Wellington, or the French Army under Napoleon Bonaparte, at the Battle of Waterloo. In his army corps, he had an artillery that was more than six times bigger and 100 times more powerful than that commanded by the Duke of Wellington.
The Australians lost approximately 1,200 men out of an assault force of more than 100,000 under Monash’s command.
‘They captured more than 6,000 Germans, 100 field artillery pieces, a complete train and hundreds of vehicles. It was a decisive victory attributed to Monash’s leadership and the fighting qualities of his Australian troops. Monash’s biographer, Roland Perry, recorded that by the time he ordered the last of his divisions out of the front line, leaving no Australians in the war, their job was done. Over the previous six months, they had taken 29,144 prisoners and liberated 116 towns and villages over an area of 660 square kilometres. No one knows precisely how many enemies were killed, but 60,000 would be a conservative figure.
‘In that same period, Australia lost 5,500 dead and had 24,000 casualties. They had taken on 39 German divisions and beaten every one of them, from the crack Prussian Guards, who fought to the last, to cobbled-together forces that ran when attacked. Long before the great German offensive of 21 March 1918, the Germans knew where the strength in the Allied armies lay. They were careful not to attack where Australian forces were on the front line.’
It is surely an indictment on our education system and our arts industry that Australians know more about the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte than they do about General Sir John Monash.
And who could ever forget the gallant charge of the Australian lighthorsesmen at Beersheba?
In the second World War it was the Australians who inflicted the first land defeat on one of the greatest German Commandes, General Erwin Rommel at Tobruk and who fought the Germans to a standstill in the Western Desert at El Alamein.
After Japan entered the war they were deemed to be invincible after defeateing the Americans in the Philippines, the British in Malaya and Singapore, the Dutch in Indonesia, and were on our doorstep before they were turned back at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda Trail, Sir William Slim, Commander of the British Forces in Burma later remarked:
‘We must not forget that it was the Australians who broke the spell of invincibility of the Japanese’.
Australians continued to serve and fight with great distinction in Borneo, Malaya, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
So why should we acknowledge Veterans? What is so special about being a Veteran? The answer, quite simply, is that these are the only servants of the Australian Nation who have had to be prepared to die to implement national policy. No others are required to make this commitment.
When undertaking this service to the nation, these men and women are deprived of any of the personal rights that properly protect our freedom and democracy. When you don a uniform, you lose the right to refuse a lawful command at every level from the CDF to the lowest recruit. If the Government says that this is what is required, the defence force has no alternative but to say “Yes Sir”. This is why the nation does not have occasions such as this to remember the service of government employees who work in the ATO or in the Diplomatic Service. Only Veterans have been required by the Australian Nation to make this ultimate commitment. Only Veterans have been required to be prepared to die in the service of our nation.
Acknowledging their sacrice at public functions along with the traditional owners of the land would be a fitting tribute ‘Lest We Forget’.
Following is the full debate on the topic in the NSW Parliament 20 years ago in May 2006:
