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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-05-03 Daily Xml
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ANZAC ACTIVITIES

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (14:48): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update members of this house on ANZAC-related activities?

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:49): I would like to acknowledge the role of the honourable member asking the question in supporting veterans in our state in so many ways over so many years, particularly Vietnam veterans.

I am pleased to be able to tell this house that the nine South Australian students who received this year's ANZAC Spirit School Prize returned home last week. For the prizewinners, it completed the research projects they undertook about South Australian soldiers, barely older than themselves, who served on the Western Front. The two-week study tour took in the Churchill War Rooms and cabinet rooms, underground, near St James in London, and also Paris and the World War I battlefields of Belgium and France, culminating in the ANZAC Day dawn service at Villers-Bretonneux.

The students represented us at the wreath laying at the service where they stood in the places where Australian soldiers so bravely fought and died for our country. They traced the very ground that, less than 100 years earlier, witnessed the battle that changed the world in the war that was supposed to end all wars.

Following the ANZAC dawn service, the march and the service of remembrance here in Adelaide, I had the great honour of unveiling a Sikh soldiers memorial plaque on the Pathway of Honour off Kintore Avenue. This plaque honours the Sikh soldiers who so bravely served alongside our ANZAC troops in both world wars and ensures that their contribution lives on in perpetuity.

Although Sikhs comprised barely 2 per cent of India's population, they accounted for nearly 20 per cent of the British Indian Army in World War I. They fought in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine and were there on the cliffs and beaches at Gallipoli, fighting as comrades in arms alongside our Diggers. In fact, there were Australians, New Zealanders—the ANZACs—and the Indians at Anzac Cove at Gallipoli. In many ways, the Indian soldiers are the forgotten ANZACs.

During the Second World War, Sikhs volunteered in even greater numbers. Despite the growing push for Indian independence from Britain at that time, around 300,000 Sikhs chose to fight with the British Indian Army. The Sikhs' exemplary bravery halted the Japanese advance in Burma and prevented their march into India. They suffered, with so many others, the inhumane conditions of the Burma-Thailand railway and also as prisoners of war in Malaya and Singapore. Sikh soldiers also won commendations from, and the admiration of, the international forces of which they were a part in Italy, in battles such as Monte Cassino. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Guru Nanak Society on their vision and their commitment to place the plaque on our Pathway of Honour.

The year 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli and South Australia has already begun preparing. I was pleased to announce on ANZAC Day this year that I have commissioned a major work from the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra as South Australia's enduring gift to the nation to commemorate not only the first ANZAC Day but a century of service since.

I believe we will be able to gift a truly remarkable and appropriate work that all Australians will listen to with great pride and affection. The piece will draw its inspiration from the men and women of our defence forces who, for almost 100 years, have stood and fought for the values we continue to share and cherish today.

Whether it is at dawn services across Adelaide, at sombre gatherings in our country and regional centres, the pilgrimage at Gallipoli's North Beach or the chill morning of a Flanders field, all of us remain honoured to walk in their light. On ANZAC Day every year we mark the everlasting companionship between the living and the dead—a handshake across the void. It is a day when we ponder the enormity of their sacrifice, and of our loss, and we offer up our heartfelt thanks.

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