Page 1184 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 24 April 1990
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ANZAC DAY 1990
Ministerial Statement and Paper
MR KAINE (Chief Minister), by leave: Mr Speaker, I sought leave so that I might speak about a very important group of people in our community - our veterans - on this, the eve of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Anzac Day.
The Alliance Government values highly the very real contributions made by the men and women of our armed forces of yesterday and today. In times when Australia has been in armed conflict, the sacrifices made by the men and women who served Australia took their toll, not only on themselves but also on their families and loved ones and indeed on the whole community. The experiences of World War I, in particular, had profound and extended consequences for Australia as a community. Without these sacrifices, Australia could not, I submit, have matured into the community that we have today.
I speak for the Alliance Government, Mr Speaker, and I know that the Canberra community shares our concern that our veterans should be recognised for their past contributions and they should be given the opportunity to continue to contribute to the community in a meaningful and worthwhile way. Naturally, on this day, our thoughts are with those veterans who are now making the return journey to Gallipoli. It is indeed a very moving and a fitting celebration of this, the seventy-fifth anniversary of Gallipoli, of the birth of the Anzac tradition. Those veterans set the example for Australia's very great tradition of sacrifice which has been carried on by subsequent generations, whenever the need has arisen, in times of both war and peace.
As the years go by, the numbers of World War II veterans, who comprise the majority of our veteran community today, will decrease, as those from World War I have already decreased, but those who remain will require increasing care as they grow older. All Australians hope, I believe, that there will be no more war veterans to follow our most recent veterans, those of the Vietnam conflict, but there is a continuing need to provide a place in the community which acknowledges the debt that we owe to these veterans from whichever war they come.
Of course, even in peace our service personnel make their particular contributions through Australia's commitment to peacekeeping forces such as those for Sinai and Namibia. The need to honour the community's commitment to those who have served Australia will continue well into the twenty-first century.
As Australia's involvement in armed conflict recedes into the past, and I truly hope that it will, those Australians with no personal experience of war cannot be allowed to forget the need to provide for veterans, their widows and their dependants. We are seeing a new generation who, in fact, have no recollection of war in their time.
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