Deputy speaker,
I rise to move that the House acknowledge that 2022 is a significant year for Australian military commemorations.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle for Australia, a series of engagements around our mainland.
It included the bombing of Darwin by 188 Japanese aircraft on 19 February 1942 that killed 250 people.
This year, we also cast our minds back to the 80th anniversary of the sinking of the HMAS Armidale in action.
On 1 December 1942, 100 Australians died during the sinking of the HMAS Armidale, the largest loss of life from any corvette in the Second World War.
The Armidale left Darwin with orders to evacuate our troops and civilians from Timor in the face of the Japanese invasion.
Operating in broad daylight, the Armidale took a direct hit.
Among its crew was a young Tasmanian called Teddy Sheean, who was posthumously awarded a Victoria Cross in 2020 for heroically staying on his sinking ship to fire on the Japanese aircraft, stopping them from strafing his mates in the water.
I also want to pay tribute to the amazing story of survival of the 49 men stranded at sea for eight days who suffered repeated attacks from Japanese bombers and sharks.
This year is also the 80th anniversary of Australian forces desperately fighting to push back the Japanese along the Kokoda Track in Buna, Gona and Sanananda in Papua, in New Guinea, the Huon Peninsula, Wewak, and on Bougainville.
This motion also invites us to reflect on the 75th anniversary of Australian peacekeeping efforts.
Australians were part of the first United Nations peacekeeping operation when military observers were deployed to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in 1947.
Since that time, Australian peacekeepers have served in locations around the world, ranging from the Middle East to Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific in every year since.
Finally, this year is also the 50th anniversary of the year that Australia’s fourth iteration of National Service was abolished by the Whitlam Labor Government on 5 December 1972.
These are all exceptionally important events in our national life, and it’s only fitting that we thank all former and current personnel for their service in these and other operations.
As ASPI fellow Graeme Dobell recently wrote, over a span of 90 years Australia went to war no fewer than nine times.
He reflected that over the 100 years from 1914, Australian personnel were on active service for 47 years or half of that.
That’s an incredible fact that says a lot about Australia’s out-sized involvement in world affairs relative to our population.
And, while our country is not currently at war, our ADF members are on operations around the world doing what they’ve always done and showing the best of Australia.
Getting urgent medical and food supplies out to remote areas of Solomon Islands to combat a Covid-19 outbreak.
Helping dispose of WWII ordnance across the Pacific.
Assisting Pacific islands to monitor and secure their fisheries.
Enforcing UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea.
Supporting the UN’s protection of civilians in South Sudan.
Soon training Ukrainians to keep resisting Russia’s illegal war.
And of course, supporting the flood response in New South Wales and Victoria.
But if we can stand tall about what Australians have done in the current century and in a dozen past wars on the side of democracy and freedom, it is only thanks to the enormous sacrifice of defence personnel who have served our nation.
And it’s their sacrifice I ask us to honour today and each day.
I also want to acknowledge the families they have left behind and those who support loved ones who have served.
To veterans and their families, I say that we are with you, you are never alone, and your example is a moral plumbline against which we measure our own actions in this place.
Thanks Deputy Speaker.
