ANZAC Day Commemoration Services

Ms LUETHEN (King) (15:26): Thank you for the opportunity today to speak about ANZAC Day 2020. In the lead-up to ANZAC Day, it became very evident that the traditional ways we have paid our respects in the past were not going to be possible this year due to the coronavirus. I would like to thank all of our communities right across South Australia for how everyone rallied together in these unprecedented times to acknowledge this special service.

In the lead-up to ANZAC Day, #lightupthedawn and #anzacathome became the focal point. I knew in the lead-up to the day that many people would miss the traditional ANZAC Day services in our local area at Tea Tree Gully RSL, Salisbury RSL, One Tree Hill Institute Hall, Smithfield Memorial Gardens, The Ferns Lifestyle Village at Salisbury East and Pegasus Pony Club, which are the ones I regularly attend.

However, I knew this year that many people would find a way to think of all those who had served. I would like to thank the Returned and Services League (RSL) of Australia and their respected branches for coming up with a different way for ANZAC Day to be celebrated and to be acknowledged and for so many people to be able to join in. Some of their ideas that they communicated were Light up the Dawn with ANZAC Day dawn services on driveways. They put up ways that we could make wreaths. They reminded people to bake Anzac biscuits and reminded people to have a gunfire breakfast and encouraged the display of Australian flags.

The Advertiser also issued paper flags and our office quickly gave out our annual quota of six flags just before ANZAC Day. Many suggestions to creatively make poppies and wreaths for home services were shared amongst people online. I know I got a lot of pleasure making our poppies from egg cartons and our wreath from some felt with my son Max.

A tradition that my family loves to enjoy every year in the lead-up to ANZAC Day is making Anzac biscuits and many were made. Did you know that the Australian War Memorial site says that soldiers often devised ingenious methods to make them easier to eat? A kind of porridge could be made by grating them and adding water. Biscuits could be soaked in water with jam added and made over the fire into jam tarts. Luckily, ours were soft enough to eat. The Australian War Memorial provides the official recipe printed in 1926 for this mouth-watering snack.

On Friday, the night before ANZAC Day, it was an honour to be invited to lay a wreath on behalf of the King community at a private ANZAC memorial service at the Tea Tree Gully RSL with my colleagues Senator Andrew McLachlan and the member for Newland. Our ANZAC Day dawn service was different this year on our driveway, but it was still a lovely service and it was wonderful to see neighbours in our street also paying their respects. We were even blessed to listen to a live bugle played across the valley by David Gardiner from Greenwith, and at the Tea Tree Gully RSL and in Greenwith we were blessed to have him play TheLast Post.

That day, we also stopped in at the Salisbury RSL to lay a wreath and then try their big bacon breakfast, which was all wrapped into a little pie. We then went on to the St Georges bakery in Greenwith for ANZAC Day bacon sandwiches. After this, I dropped off wreaths and books throughout the electorate on behalf of people living in King. In addition, I stopped by to visit Richard and Anelia from Salisbury Heights to hear their stories of service over 40 years.

I was so impressed, as were Richard's neighbours, that he also played The Last Post on his bugle, dressed up and standing under the flag in his front garden. He and his wife, Anelia, invited us in to have tea and biscuits and I learnt how Anelia is also strongly involved in the Partners of Veterans Association and how their members offer friendship, support, information, advocacy and understanding to many people.

This year's services were truly different, but they were memorable. It felt like many more families became involved this year because in the morning it was easier to take people who might have disabilities, older people and young children to the end of the driveway. It was different due to the COVID circumstances, but I thank everyone for their efforts and for recognising the sacrifices they have made. Lest we forget.