Motions

Remembrance Day

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (11:01): I move:

That the House of Assembly of the Parliament of South Australia places on record its deep and sincere appreciation to all South Australians who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces to protect our freedoms and acknowledges that this year's Remembrance Day marks the 100^th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the fighting in the First World War.

When the guns fell silent on the Western Front at 11am on 11 November 1918, it marked the end of the Great War. This date and time have become an occasion for us to recognise and pay tribute to all who have served throughout the last century and into this one.

Just two weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Western Front in France. I went to the Heath Cemetery, a short drive from Villers-Bretonneux. There, I was honoured to be able to place a cross at the gravesites of three South Australian soldiers: Sergeant Charles Allen Williams, Private Frank Francis Harrison and Private Charles William Winkler. I also had the privilege of laying a wreath at a small ceremony at the Australian war memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.

It was a humbling experience to stand on the Western Front to honour our soldiers at the place where they served and where many fell, making the ultimate sacrifice, men unknown to us today but to whom we remain enormously indebted 100 years later. Our nation is eternally grateful for the sacrifices our soldiers have made. Between now and Sunday, there will be further opportunities to pay our respects. There will be many commemorative services across our state and I urge all South Australians to participate on this very special anniversary.

The day after the armistice, 100 years ago this Sunday, this House of Assembly met. It debated and adopted unanimously the following motion:

That the House of Assembly of the Parliament of South Australia places on record its deep and sincere thankfulness to Almighty God for the success vouchsafed to Great Britain and her Allies in the great war now happily brought to a conclusion, and for the blessings of peace. It also expresses its loyalty and devotion to the throne and person of His Majesty King George the Fifth.

On the same day, on North Terrace outside Parliament House, a mass of people gathered to hear an Armistice Day address from the governor.

At the time, relief at the end of the First World War also brought hope that there would be no more wars. That was not to be fulfilled. Today, Australia still has men and women in conflict zones. We remain indebted to all those who have served and continue to serve in our name to protect us and to preserve freedoms all too often taken for granted.

After the very special commemorative services conclude this Sunday, let us ensure, as a community, that we continue to shine a light on all military service personnel past and present in gratitude for all that they have done and continue to do for us. Let us also recognise that when men and women sign up to serve on our behalf, they do not stop being a citizen. When they step out of uniform, they do not cease to serve. Like their predecessors, today's service personnel have skills that enable them to continue to serve, just in a different role.

We must be prepared to meet the continuing needs of veterans and to learn to leverage their considerable skills when they transition to civilian life. In South Australia, we are committed to supporting transitioning veterans. We are developing a defence industry employment program for ex-serving personnel. We recognise the value our veterans bring to the workplace through their skills and experiences developed during military service. Their strong work ethic, leadership and problem-solving skills are highly valued attributes and we want to continue to enrich the workplace with experienced workers.

Defence SA is working closely with the Defence Teaming Centre on developing the defence industry employment program to assist ex-serving personnel to move into new jobs in the industry. We are also ensuring that we are able to provide the right assistance to transitioning veterans in areas such as advocacy, employment, advice and community support.

In the life of our nation, across every generation, there are those who stand apart: they step up; they raise their hands. In South Australia, they take an oath, they put on the uniform and they put their lives on the line. They do this so that the rest of us might live in a country, and a world, that is safer and freer. This is a gift and we owe a debt. The person you pass as you walk down the street might not be wearing our nation's uniform today, but consider for a moment that a year or a decade or even a generation ago they may have been one of those people who was willing to lay down their life for complete strangers. At this special time of commemoration, let us also remember all that our veterans still have to offer. We thank you for your service. We are forever in your debt. Lest we forget.

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (11:07): I also rise to support the Premier's motion and echo his rather eloquent words on a poignant moment for our state and our nation. Just over a year ago, the South Australian government launched a book called Valour and Violets, a project supported by all members of this house. The book is now in every school and library and sits in many homes. It is our story, a story of how the Great War impacted every corner of society, from Adelaide to the outback, from country towns to our inner city suburbs. It is the story of the heroism of individuals, groups of men, groups of women, families, townships and communities.

The book was compiled by military historian Robert 'Dogs' Kearney, who donated his author's fee to the Virtual War Memorial, an online history portal for use by South Australian school students. Kearney travelled to almost every town and community in the state to document the impact of World War I in South Australia from the dual perspective of those who served and those who were also at home. It tells the stories of a generation of young men, some killed, some wounded and some traumatised. It pays homage to the wives, mothers and grandparents who received back their physically and emotionally battered husbands and sons.

This was a war that was so different from today's conflicts, where technology is the battle ground. What made the impact of the First World War so horrific was, of course, the extraordinary toll on human life. Battles were fought with bayonet and rifle, with cavalry charges and single-shot weapons. The new technology of the time was hand grenades and mortars and the first versions of armoured tanks. The result was a war where young lives were thrown away at a rate that would never be tolerated in future societies and one of the reasons it was called 'the war to end all wars'.

If you want a real feel for the impact of this war, take the time to stop at the memorials or visit small towns and communities in South Australia when you pass through. You will see a long list of names—men and women who left our shores to fight battles on the other side of the world. What you will see is how some towns lost a quarter—a quarter—of their young men. Places as close as Stirling, now just a 20-minute drive up the freeway, were devastated by the loss of life. The impact was felt for decades and decades.

On Sunday, at 11am, it will still be felt. On that day, we will honour the more than 5,000 South Australian men and women who paid the ultimate price. Their names are rightly recorded on the National War Memorial on North Terrace. They are honoured in white crosses all along the lawns that run alongside the southern wall of Government House. However, you will not see the names of more than 30,000 South Australians who served and survived the Great War, nor will you see the names and the sacrifice of their family and friends.

When you consider the 35,000 people who were directly involved, multiply it by their family and friends and then compare it to our total population of just 450,000 at the time, you can see how the whole community felt the impact of the war. It was our state's costliest conflict, in terms of death, casualties and postwar complexities. Australian War Memorial historian, Bill Gammage, wrote in his 1974 book The Broken Years, 'There was never a greater tragedy than World War One.'

We have rightly memorialised those who have served. We do that on Sunday in a way that is bipartisan and reflects the best traditions of our state. When I reflect upon World War I, it is often in the context of the fact that it was very much occurring in an age when our nation was in its infancy, a young nation that gave up so many young men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice. They did so in the name of a number of causes, but none greater than the cause of freedom, best represented by our democratic system of responsible government that we enjoy here in our state.

We all love our sons and daughters in a profound way that can only be known by a loving parent. The fact that so many loving parents in our state gave up the love of their lives, their own children, in the name of that cause is largely beyond comprehension to us here today in a modern era. They made the ultimate sacrifice, and those individuals made the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives in the name of the cause that I think we all seek to represent: a democratic system of government where everybody has an equal say in terms of how it is run.

I think it is wise for us to reflect in this room that we are the custodians of that cause and that we should do everything we can as a state and as a parliament to honour that sacrifice not just on Sunday but in the way we conduct ourselves generally.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (11:12): I rise to support the motion and thank both the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition, who speak in this parliament on behalf of all South Australians, for this important recognition and the ongoing future recognition of those who serve to protect freedoms.

Over the last four years in South Australia, as it has been across the free world, there has been recognition of the many battles and many losses and of the tens of thousands of people who lost their lives and the millions who were injured—the plight, pain and sacrifice of the four years that traversed and shattered the world between 1914 and 1918.

This week should be a joyful week because it celebrates the end of the actual conflict, the centenary of the armistice, but it is fair to say that you only have to walk or drive around South Australia and see the many memorial hospitals that were built after World War I to see the continuing pain and suffering of those who returned, those who were severely injured and the many who lost their lives post 1918 to understand the significant sacrifice. As the Premier and Leader of the Opposition have mentioned, of course this is an intolerable loss and sacrifice for the families who lost their fathers, brothers, sons and the like.

Only when one loses a family member in conflict, especially someone from a small community, is that pain so intolerable. The loss of Sapper Jamie Larcombe, a South Australian, was one that hit the Kangaroo Island community very deeply. He is not the first soldier to die from that community, but he was recent and it was raw and it was painful. His loss while serving is well known, and his immeasurable loss to that community continues in that regard. He is recognised in perpetuity in a mental health service that has now been rebuilt at the Glenside campus of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and I think that it is sad that his name should be immortalised in this way. I would prefer him to be here, to have partnered and to have had many children for the rest of his family to enjoy. But he is not here to do that, and we should honour that.

It would not be well known, but we now have women military officers returning to South Australia in need of our support. Why? Of course, they were not in direct conflict a hundred years ago, but they were up to their arms in blood providing medical and other support to those who were at the front line. They had to meet the significant loss when their fathers, brothers and sons did not come home. They had to carry on with their lives in our state and in their local communities. But women are now amongst the number who return injured and they are also to be recognised.

We have accommodated some of our services, importantly providing mental health services for those with a PTSD trauma who return, for example. However, I believe that we need to do a lot more for women who have served in the military. Much has been said about some of the matters they have had to endure during their military service, but I think that there is a lot more to be done. We on our side of the house are working very hard with the Premier to ensure that we not only deal with the transition back to life, and civilian life, for those who return to us but that we do not forget the unique experiences that some of our women personnel have contributed and will continue to contribute.

They are at the front line in our military service and they will continue to be. I am proud of their being there and I am grateful that they are there. It is incumbent on all governments to ensure that we properly support them in their reaccreditations, their re-employment and their restoration to civilian and family life and give them every opportunity that they would have had without the contribution they made in military service.

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (11:17): I rise in support of the Premier's motion. I indicate that the comments I make today in relation to this motion complement the motion we passed yesterday in this place. As I noted in another motion yesterday, the armistice signed on 11 November 1918, in a rail carriage in the Forest of Compiègne in northern France, ended all military conflict between the allied nations and Germany—a war that had claimed the lives of more than 8.5 million armed service personnel and injured 21 million more. But it ended. Australia has not suffered as many casualties in any other conflict.

During the First World War, more than 60,000 members of the Australian Imperial Forces were killed and 156,000 were wounded, gassed or taken prisoner. Those who have travelled through regional South Australia would have noticed memorials erected in towns and small communities to commemorate the tragic losses endured during this and subsequent conflicts. On Sunday, residents of communities in regional and rural South Australia, as well as in metropolitan Adelaide, will gather at local memorial services to honour the fallen and those who have served, to pay their respects to those serving and to commemorate the centenary of peace following horrific war. I would encourage as many members of the public as possible to attend a Remembrance Day service in their community.

Members of this house would be aware that on Sunday retail shops will open at 11am. Given the importance of this year's Remembrance Day commemorations, during estimates I suggested to the Premier that shop trading hours for this Sunday be amended to a 12 midday opening time. This change would allow owners and managers of retail shops, as well as retail workers, to attend these importance Remembrance Day events but, more importantly, it would allow the family and friends of veterans also to attend these events, as has been pointed out to me by the veterans who attended my forum. I look forward to hearing the Premier's resolution on this issue.

I support the motion's reference to this house's deep and sincere appreciation to all South Australians who have served and continue to serve in our armed forces to protect our freedoms. Commemoration, remembrance, respect and acknowledgement of service form an important part of honouring our veteran community.

Veteran advocacy is also important. When I speak with members of the regional RSL sub-branches, they tell me of their struggles identifying and successfully applying for suitable grant funding to help them maintain their clubs—not for the sake of their club but for supporting the members in our rural and regional areas. They also talk about the struggles they encounter in maintaining continuity of care from health professionals in capital cities and adequate assistance with travel and accommodation expenses.

In my consultation with other ex-service organisations, I hear of the day-to-day challenges confronting the veteran community. As has been mentioned, there are difficulties with reintegration of veterans into civilian life, disproportionate levels of unemployment and a strain on veteran families. These are some of the challenges that have been raised with me at various forums. I would like to also acknowledge, because it is not this government alone, that a number of community organisations play a very important role in supporting our veterans, and I think it is appropriate that we actually acknowledge them here today.

In no particular order, they are: Aboriginal Veterans of South Australia, the Defence Consultative Group, Defence Families of Australia, Defence Force Welfare Association, Defence Reserves Association, Department of Veterans' Affairs, the Vietnam Veterans' Federation, the Vietnam Veterans' Association, The Road Home, the TPI Association, the Jamie Larcombe Centre, Legacy, the Naval Association of Australia (SA), Partners of Veterans Association of Australia—SA Branch, the Roads to Recovery Program, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force Association (SA Division), Royal Australian Regiment Association—SA Australia Branch, the RSL—RSL Care SA, the RSL itself, the RSL SA Women's Sub Branch, Soldier On and also the War Widows' Guild. These are some of the community organisation that work alongside government to make sure that our veterans can be supported while they are overseas and also, importantly, when they return.

To the Premier's credit, I note the promising issues included in this year's budget designed to assist veterans' wellbeing. I note that the budget contains the defence industry employment program for ex-service personnel aimed at recognising and promoting the training, skills and experience of South Australia's ex-service personnel and facilitating a pathway to employment with the defence industry.

Additionally, I would also like to acknowledge that the budget papers also refer to a commitment made to collect and disseminate data on the number of veterans and ex-service personnel who become homeless, experience mental health problems or enter the criminal justice system. This information is very important to collect because it will help guide us in developing policies that enable us to respond to every need of the veteran community. I look forward to seeing the benefits of these start-up programs.

On this side of the chamber, we also recognise that the successful integration of veterans into work and community is of primary concern to a healthy society. That is why my federal colleagues will implement a $121 million veterans employment policy to support training grants for eligible businesses, recognition of veterans' prior skills and also establish a defence employment and transition service to support our veterans in transitioning to civilian life. On my side of politics, we also are developing a family engagement and support strategy for defence personnel and veterans.

Real programs and support are required to help our veterans rebuild their lives when they return. I would like to commend people involved in the Invictus Games, which has given veterans a new opportunity to actually help rebuild and recover their lives. It is these sorts of programs that support veterans. With these few comments, I support the motion.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (11:23): I am honoured indeed to have the privilege to speak in support of the Premier's motion this morning as we approach the centenary of the armistice on 11 November 1918. Services throughout my electorate of Heysen exemplify those that will occur across the state and the nation on Sunday.

This is not an occasion reserved for officialdom. It is not a celebration of victory. It is an occasion to remember, to commemorate and to honour those who served, those who came home and those great many who did not. This is an occasion to remember in the towns and communities from where they came in their large numbers—too many never to return.

Commemorations will occur throughout Heysen. In particular, I note the Macclesfield RSL, which will hold its annual Remembrance Day service in the new ANZAC Memorial Gardens in Macclesfield. This service is one of many and one of the most well attended throughout the Adelaide Hills. It is to be conducted in parallel with services at Echunga, Aldgate, Mylor, Meadows, Strathalbyn and Upper Sturt, to name just a few of the small towns throughout Heysen. Sunday is an occasion for communities to recognise such an important part of the history of all our communities, and we will do so with solemnity, as we have now for 100 years.

We know that there is no glory in war. In Australia, we proudly honour those brave men and women and we mourn their loss. There is, as the Deputy Premier has referred to, another significant and important absence from the record 100 years ago, that is, the care that these damaged and sometimes difficult men received from their families on their return. Their wives and mothers undertook the bulk of the work. Sometimes, the demands were so great that they required extended family or community support.

Many war veterans demanded a significant and lifelong commitment to caregiving. Like the men they cared for, these women's lives were also transformed by the war, and their largely unrecognised work often demonstrated the same loyalty, endurance, courage and sacrifice that are fundamental to our ideas of ANZAC. By this motion, we commemorate and we make an effort to recover something of what was the true cost of war and to broaden our understanding of the phrase 'we will remember them'.

Lest there be any thought that the events of 1914 to 1918 might somehow fade from our memories, I want to recognise on this occasion two expressions of our reverence and honour. Firstly, I will have the honour tomorrow, Friday 9 November, ahead of Armistice Day, to attend the opening of a new memorial at Bridgewater. The Bridgewater War Memorial will be officially opened ahead of Remembrance Day. This is a memorial that has been developed by the thoughtfulness and creativity of primary school students of Bridgewater Primary School. They have reflected upon their understanding of and relationship to the commemoration of those who served so long ago.

Their expression is to be found in this new memorial at Bridgewater. There were about 40 people from Bridgewater who served in the first war. The memorial will be opened in the morning and will be followed by a gathering. I expect there will be Anzac biscuits available and that it will be very well attended by the community. It is tremendous to see this expression from those who are so young, showing that our commemoration is still most fresh and vibrant and current.

Secondly, I had the honour of representing the Premier on 17 October to unveil a new and fitting memorial at Stirling, outside the Coventry Library. I recognise the Stirling RSL president, John Thomas, and also the Stirling RSL welfare officer and past president, Eli Sleiman, for their commitment to the achievement of this memorial. On that day, Eli said that the memorial honoured the sacrifices for an ideal way of life. He said:

Let us take strength in the knowledge and hope that our sons and daughters will never forget the example set by their forefathers. In our everyday life let us endeavour to carry on those traditions established in past wars and conflicts at such tragic cost…We think of every man, woman and child who, in those crucial years, died so that the lights of freedom and humanity might continue to shine. We nurture too the obligation of showing gratitude for the peace we enjoy and the responsibility of ensuring that the freedom and liberty so dearly won is not lost by our own indifference.

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:32): I echo and concur with every sentiment that has been expressed this morning by my colleagues on both sides of the chamber, and I am heartened at these times when we can come together with a shared view of the world.

World War I was called the war to end all wars; it was the bloodiest conflict of modern times. In that sense, and in many others, it was a failure. It did not end all war. The armistice that we celebrate was but a pause for Europe and much of the rest of the world before the world was again engulfed in a war that, while not as bloody on the battlefield, saw the loss of an extraordinary number of people through the brutality of the Nazi regime and their allies.

The story of World War I is so essential to the story of Australia: not least because of the percentage of people who died or who were damaged and came back and were cared for by their families, as has been so eloquently referred to; not least because the degree of individual courage and collective mateship forged a sense of what the Australian character can be, should be and remains when we are at our best; and not least because we saw Aboriginal people serving at a time when they were not fully recognised as citizens of this country and not fully recognised as having served until much later. Yet they chose to see their shared view of what was important in defending the western ideals of democracy and in answering a call. That meant that they saw beyond their own immediate circumstances and how they were being treated at that time.

The story of World War I has become so important to us as a nation that it does not surprise me that, 100 years after the armistice, not only we as the adults, the politicians and the people who are involved in the RSL see the importance, but also the younger generations are as engaged any generation has ever been.

I think when we seriously contemplate what we can learn from World War I and the aftermath of World War I, we have to acknowledge that it was a failure of politics. At no point was it a failure of individual soldiers and of the willingness and capacity of families to sacrifice. At no point was there a failure of courage, but there was a failure of politics in Europe that dragged in so many tens of thousands of men and so many women and children in other ways.

It is a point that I would like to convey, as it remains important to us in Australia today: to honour what occurred on the battlefields of World War I, we must honour that politics must never again be allowed to fail to that degree and that our sense of being able to solve issues by throwing a generation of people into the trenches can never be allowed to be repeated. We seem a long way from that.

In many parts of the world, war is not entirely over. If we are to guard against ever slipping back into a world where we think that is an acceptable way to solve conflict, then we must prize our diversity and prize the multicultural country we have become, not least following World War I and World War II, when Europe became so unbearable that Australia seemed to be a good option. We have benefited from this.

The waves of migration since World War I have made this an extraordinary nation and an extraordinary state. What we in this chamber must never forget is how important that multicultural character is to the very character of our nation. We must never allow differences in politics to result in anything like the catastrophe of World War I or the catastrophe of the last century in the Western World.

I honour the RSLs and Naval Association in my electorate: Largs Bay RSL, Semaphore Port Adelaide RSL Club, and the Naval Association of Australia based in Port Adelaide. I honour their maintenance of the flame, not only acknowledging the courage of those who served but that it must never happen again. Lest we forget.

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (11:37): I also rise to support the Premier's motion to commemorate the upcoming centenary of armistice on 11 November. One hundred years ago, at 11am on 11 November 1918, the guns fell silent on the Western Front, marking the end of World War I—a war that had started in Serbia on 28 July 1914 and quickly escalated as alliances triggered first Russia, then Germany, France and finally Britain, to join on 4 August 1914, drawing Australia into the conflict.

The first campaign to involve the Australian infantry force was the landing at Gallipoli in Turkey on 25 April 2015, where Australian troops established a tenuous foothold on the steep slopes above the beach. The 10^th Battalion, from South Australia, was the first to land on the shores of Anzac Cove. Norwood footballer and 1907 Magarey medallist Lance Corporal Philip de Quetteville Robin and companion Arthur Blackburn, were ordered to 'go like hell' for the Third Ridge. The pair advanced further inland than any other Australian or allied troop throughout the entire Gallipoli campaign. Although heavily outnumbered, they continued to charge for Scrubby Knoll, showing extreme courage and sacrifice.

Three days into the campaign, Robin was killed in action, foremost in the charge. Despite repeated attempts at a breakthrough, a stalemate continued for the remainder of 1915 until the troops were evacuated on 19 December. The whole Gallipoli campaign cost 26,111 Australian casualties, including 8,141 deaths. Gallipoli was ultimately a failed attempt to open a new theatre of war and to end the impasse of the Western Front in France, which had been running since August 1914.

The Western Front was the principal theatre of war in the First World War and is remembered as a costly war of attrition where the value of human life was forgotten in the futile battles of 1916 and 1917. Five times as many Australians fought and died in France and Belgium than on the Gallipoli peninsula, commanded by British generals ill-equipped to fight the first war of a new industrial age.

The Battle of Fromelles on 19 July 1916 was a bloody initiation for Australian soldiers to warfare on the Western Front. The attack was intended as a feint to hold German reserves from moving south to the Somme, where a large allied offensive had begun on 1 July. The feint was a disastrous failure. Australian and British soldiers assaulted over open ground in broad daylight and under direct observation and heavy fire from the German lines. Over 5,500 Australians became casualties. Almost 2,000 of them were killed in action or died of their wounds. This is believed to be the greatest loss by a single division in 24 hours during the entire First World War.

July and August of 1916 at Pozieres saw 23,000 Australian casualties in six weeks, with 6,800 dead. In the blood-soaked quagmire of Passchendaele in October 1917, Australia sustained 38,000 casualties in eight weeks. Thirty-five Australians were killed for every metre of ground taken. By the end of 1917, the first empire to succumb was Russia, with revolution overthrowing the tsar and Russia leaving the war. This saw over one million German soldiers and 3,000 guns transferred to the Western Front.

The Germans launched a spring offensive on 21 March 1918, with the aim of delivering a knock-out blow in the west before American troops arrived. Over the next four weeks, rapid German advances were made on Paris and the Channel ports to cut off supply to the British Army. At no time in history has Australia had as great an impact on international affairs as in 1918.

One hundred years ago, on 25 April 1918, Australian soldiers found themselves facing the advancing German army at the French village of Villers-Bretonneux, including the 50^th and 52^nd battalions from South Australia. The allied armies of the Western Front were in retreat and the fall of Paris and defeat loomed. Some of these Australian soldiers were veterans of the Gallipoli landings in 1915. Without artillery support, and relying solely on the element of surprise, the ANZACs of the 13^th and 15^th battalions undertook a near suicidal charge to retake Villers-Bretonneux from the German enemy, whose figures were silhouetted by the flames of the burning town.

By 26 April, the battle was over and no German would set foot in the town again. The battle would mark the end of the German offensive on the Somme, but the battle had been exceptionally costly. Total Australian casualties amounted to 2,473 officers and men. But these soldiers were more than names to be added to an honour roll. After the battle, a digger gave Lieutenant George Mitchell a half-filled sandbag. As Lieutenant Mitchell wrote:

Very few things contained so much tragedy as the contents of that sandbag. They were all letters, unsealed and uncensored. Some of the letters were pierced through and crimson-stained...

Mitchell posted them all with an explanatory note. They were letters from fathers whose children would never get to know them and letters from 18 year olds whose parents would never see them married or have children of their own.

Soon after this battle, John Monash was appointed as commander of the Australian troops. For the first time, Australian soldiers were to be commanded by an Australian. Despite the heroism, Villers-Bretonneux reinforced that it was not going to be possible to recapture the thousands of French and Belgian towns occupied by the German army if each battle resulted in similar losses. Lieutenant General Monash wrote that he had formed the view that the true role of infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort and wither away under merciless machine-gun fire but to advance under the maximum possible protection in the form of artillery, machine guns, tanks and aeroplanes.

Monash introduced the all-arms battle at the Battle of Hamel in July 1918 when he coordinated the use of 60 tanks, a creeping artillery barrage and aircraft to mask the noise of the tanks and drop ammunition to advancing infantry. The battle took 93 minutes and was the first allied victory of 1918 on the Western Front. After four years of static warfare based on deathly attrition, an Australian, Lieutenant General Monash, had shown how the Allies could go on the offensive and preserve their badly depleted army.

Hamel was then replicated on a much larger scale in the Battle of Amiens on 8 August, where Monash commanded an army numbering over 200,000. His command was bigger than the Duke of Wellington's at the Battle of Waterloo. Amongst those at his command were the South Australian 10^th and 27^th battalions who, on the weekend, I witnessed have a freedom of entry parade into the city of Adelaide. The Battle of Amiens would become known as the Black Day of the German army and marked the final 100 days of the war.

Fighting continued throughout August. By the 29^th, the front line was within three miles of the strategic town of Péronne and Mont Saint-Quentin. Eight Victoria Crosses were awarded to Australians in the capture of Péronne and Mont Saint-Quentin, the greatest number for any single Australian operation. Monash's battle-weary Australians pushed on from Péronne, fighting their way to the Hindenburg Line, a wide, fortified zone of machine guns, artillery, barbed wire, trenches and tunnels. On 29 September, against the Hindenburg Line, Monash, supported by a British division, forced the Germans to withdraw and, on 5 October, captured the town of Montbrehain.

From the village of Villers-Bretonneux, 100 years ago, starting on 25 April Monash's Australian Army advanced 50 miles to the town of Montbrehain, arriving on 5 October, depleted and exhausted, with the war having a little over a month to run. Today, these 50 miles are a pleasant hour's drive through scenic French countryside, but in 1918 this same journey took six months and came at a terrible cost. Those 50 miles would be among the most significant 50 miles in our nation's history.

On the Western Front, the guns finally fell silent with the armistice on 11 November. At war's end, a total of 416,000 Australians had enlisted. Of those, 58,961 had been killed in battle, including 5,500 South Australians. Another 166,811 returned to Australia with wounds great or small. Over 50 per cent of enlisted Australians were dead or wounded. Following the war, around the country, marble, stone and bronze memorials were erected as substitute graves to remember the sacrifices made by so many in faraway lands.

They were drawn from all walks of life. Most of them were young, and we should always remember that war always takes a tragic toll on a nation's youth, a nation's future. As A.E. Housman wrote:

Here dead we lie because we did not choose

To live and shame the land from which we sprung.

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;

But young men think it is, and we were young.

It is around many of these memorials that Armistice Day ceremonies will be held on 11 November, including a Plympton Glenelg RSL service at Moseley Square, Glenelg. Australians will come together to honour and remember the sacrifice made by all our service men and women of the armed services, as well as their families, in ensuing conflicts. Lest we forget.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (11:49): I would like to rise to offer my support of the Premier's motion commemorating Armistice Day 100 years ago. The consequences of war must never be forgotten. The loss is enormous, and it has a huge ripple effect in our community.

We as a generation are now leaving behind the immediate connections to the stories and tales of loss and trauma that people went through in the Great War. It is our responsibility as a generation to ensure that those stories continue in the best and clearest way possible to ensure that, going forward, we learn from history and the mistakes of conflicts and decisions made.

To lose one child is a tragedy, but to lose multiple children from one family is unthinkable. I know of many families who have suffered that due to war, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. I have family stories that have been passed on to me. My parents always ensured that I saw historically correct movies and documentaries about war to assist me in my learning and understanding of what it meant to be a Rat of Tobruk and what it actually meant to a person with that label who went bravely into battlefields and fought for their country and, as our deputy leader said, fought for our democracy to enable us to have a safe and fair community in Australia.

Our community was touched by war only eight years ago when Private Tomas Dale, aged 21, was killed by a roadside bomb, along with Private Kirby, a 35-year-old father of two. There was no warning and their lights were snuffed out in an instant. Tomas was a young Reynella boy, a Reynella East College student, a son of our friends, a friend of many of my young friends in our community, on his first mission into the Baluchi Valley in the desert of Afghanistan. This was a terrible tragedy for Tomas's family. They will never recover from it, but I know that they all take some solace in the fact that Tomas was doing something he felt was right for fairness and for world peace. Sometimes the irony is that you have to have war, which is just a complete nonsense in my mind, but I understand the meaning of it, even though I just despair at the futility.

The Reynella East College has always shown absolute respect for the history of war. Tomorrow, as part of their Remembrance Day ceremony, three different services will be conducted, which I will be attending with Amanda Rishworth, the federal shadow minister for veterans' affairs. She has supported the school and they will be opening and ribbon-cutting on their Avenue of Honour. I look forward greatly to being there because hundreds and hundreds of families will be there, as they are normally on every Remembrance Day. They have an enormous service. Congratulations to Reynella East College for always ensuring that every child—and there are about 1,800 of them—who goes through their school understands what it is to represent your country with bravery, honour and courage. All of us are assisted by that to move forward and pass on that story through the generations.

I would like to reflect on one more part of the First World War. Many young soldiers who went to war did not come home. Many families received the knock on the door, the telegram or the message and the hand on the shoulder to say that their child or their children would not be coming home. I know a Clarendon family who had several children who did not come home. Many young people are still lying in the fields. In fact, 6,000 young Australians are unnamed soldiers lying in fields across Europe. That is something else for us to think about: what we can do as a nation moving forward to assist in the repatriation and identification of lost soldiers. With the technology and the will that we have, I am sure that we, as parliaments across this country, can do something to support that.

Thank you, Premier, for bringing this motion to the house, and thank you to everybody for supporting it. My final words are: lest we forget.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (11:54): I rise to make a short contribution on the motion brought forward by the Premier and to join everyone in this place in recording our deep and sincere appreciation to all South Australians who served and continue to serve in our armed forces and for the freedoms they fought for.

Obviously, this is a significant year, marking the 100^th anniversary of the armistice. In this contribution, I want to touch on and expand slightly the point made by the deputy leader in regard to the renewed sense of engagement by the youth of today in recognising those who have gone before us. There are so many young South Australians who have great-grandparents or grandparents who served or who have family members now involved in the armed forces. Through the centenary of the ANZACs, from 2014 through to 2018, they have had a renewed willingness and want to understand more about the conflict that has come before us.

We are almost two or three generations removed from a conflict of this scale of casualty, of loss of life and of loss of future. To be in that position, sometimes it does take an event or a time line like a 100^th anniversary to have that renewed sense of understanding. This centenary has given an opportunity for grandparents and great-grandparents to share with younger Australians stories that have sometimes gone untold. I think that is incredibly important, that renewed level of engagement and willingness to understand previous conflicts as it will no doubt assist us to ensure that our future is brighter and more peaceful.

I want to quickly recognise both the William Kibby Men's Shed and the Henley and Grange RSL, which will both be holding services in the electorate of Colton on 11 November to recognise both Remembrance Day and Armistice Day. They do a fantastic job, particularly the William Kibby VC Men's Shed. I have talked about the RSL before, but the William Kibby VC Men's Shed in Glenelg North is an incredibly important and functional place. It is a shed and memorial garden that provide services for both servicemen and servicewomen who have returned. It is a place to share experiences, gain skills and assimilate back into civilian life, which is sometimes more difficult than many of us imagine, and the more that we can do to support that transition is an incredibly powerful and important thing.

With those few words, I wish to extend my full support of this motion to honour and appreciate those servicemen and servicewomen who have given their lives and those who have not but have committed themselves to our country and democracy. With that, we say, 'Lest we forget.'

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (11:58): I, too, rise to support the Premier's motion and to thank him for marking the service of South Australians and the armistice. There is little that can be added to the many fine words that have been spoken here today and written and said during the past 12 months, all commemorating our fighting forces and the devastation that led to the day the guns finally fell silent, marking the end of the Great War.

The speeches from the Hon. Brendan Nelson, in particular, in his role as Director of the Australian War Memorial, have been so moving that when hearing them it is impossible not to feel the magnitude of the calamity and tumult of the battles our soldiers faced. On behalf of the electors of Florey, I recognise the importance of the sacrifices made by all active personnel, the dead and the wounded, and the impact on the veterans and families left behind or left to rebuild lives on the return of veterans.

I acknowledge the many people who provide the ceremonies for us to mark Remembrance Day every year and will again on Sunday. At these ceremonies, we pause to remember the Great War and all that happened. We especially remember those who never returned and the veterans who did. Some gave all and all gave some to achieve a just world and world peace. In remembering that, it becomes part of what we must never forget. The Virtual War Memorial commemorates for all time the stories of members of the Army, Navy and Air Force who fought for us. I urge people to spend some time reading their stories and to make sure that their family stories are recorded to become part of our shared collective memory. Lest we forget.