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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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Remembrance Day

The Hon. A. PICCOLO (Light) (12:10): I move:

That this house—

(a) notes that Remembrance Day this year marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice to end the First World War;

(b) acknowledges the sacrifices made by many men and women in that and subsequent conflicts to help protect parliamentary democracy over the globe;

(c) thanks all organisations, like the RSL, who have worked hard over the decades to provide support and comfort to those who have returned from overseas conflicts and their families; and

(d) calls on the Liberal-National federal government to provide the resources necessary to enable all returned personnel to fully reintegrate into our community once they have completed their service.

I rise in support of my motion. The armistice of 11 November 1918 ended all military conflict between allied nations and Germany. Peace had already been secured between the Allies and Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in previous armistice agreements. The armistice was famously signed at the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th month in 1918 in a rail carriage in the Forest of Compiègne in northern France. It brought an end to the war, which many hoped at the time would be the war to end all wars. One of my local newspapers, the Gawler Bunyip, records the following in on page 2 of its Friday 15 November 1918 edition under the heading 'Gawler celebration, scenes of wildest joy'. It states:

Never in the history of Gawler has the town witnessed such scenes of wild enthusiasm and pure undiluted joy as that exhibited on Monday evening when the news was circulated that the war was practically over—that Germany had capitulated and signed the armistice, placing her fate in the hands of the Allies.

Near to 8 o'clock the glad tidings were mentioned, but people were cautious in acceptance of the receipt. 'The Bunyip' Office was visited by batches of people whose looks of expectancy were curbed by the fear that the glad message might be another of the hoaxes that had entrapped the residents in the past.

The telephone was in constant service and shortly after 8 o'clock the management were in the happy position of being able to verify their first message that the information bore the magic endorsement of 'Official'.

It was then that the pent-up feelings of the people had to break bounds.

The creeping walk engendered by uncertainty, bounded into a joyous run to meet the bubbling spirits of joy, and soon all were clamouring that the joyous news had at last arrived, and that the Germans had given in.

To each enquirer it was 'Yes! It's true.

Peace is declared, and the armistice signed.'

The town Hall burst into a flood of light, and the Council (which was sitting at the time) immediately adjourned and assembled on the steps of the building where they sang the National Anthem and gave cheers for the victory.

This joyous acclaim penetrated to other quarters of the town, and soon the factory whistles took up the glad refrain, the Church bells added their peals of rejoicing, and dinner bells and kerosene tins were utilized for the beating out of the message far and near.

The scene that followed will never he forgotten.

Murray Street and the Town Hall were the Mecca for the occasion.

The Bunyip goes on to record:

Old and young hurried on with one accord. The by-streets poured forth their quotas, people appearing in all forms of dress, the later ones showing that they had…not the time to renew their everyday clothes.

Rapidly a dense crowd numbering thousands assembled before the Town Hall, the spectators including persons from as far out as Reeves Plains.

In fact, everybody felt that they must shout, and this they did without decorum or thought of dignity of position. The laughing was infectious…

The Bunyip goes on to say:

Their thoughts were that loved ones would be spared the dangers of battle.

To some the note had a mark of sorrow that lads born would no more return to their native land…

Fathers gave way to the excitement of the occasion, and capered around as little children; the youth were uproarious with frantic delight—dancing, skipping, singing, shouting—anything that would tie a safety valve to the bursting feelings that pressed from within…

The jubilation was kept up until about 11 o'clock when the National Anthem was again sung.

At midnight, The Bunyip records, the events ceased and the crowds dispersed, tired but joyous over the victories achieved.

While the celebrations were appropriate and understandable, it nevertheless remains a truly horrific conflict. Reliable estimates have recorded the number of military deaths from all sides at more than 8.5 million people and the numbers wounded at 21 million. Australia shared in this suffering. The First World War remains the costliest conflict for our nation in terms of deaths and casualties. The Australian War Memorial reports that, from a population of fewer than 5 million, 416,809 men enlisted, of whom more than 60,000 were killed and 156,000 wounded, gassed or taken prisoner.

It is sad that it is only in recent times that we have understood that the signing of the peace agreements may end the hostilities but certainly does not end the war. For those veterans and their families, for those who made the ultimate sacrifice and for those who were prepared to, the horror of the war was to follow them home and cast a shadow over the rest of their lives. Some were never to speak of it, while others resorted to alcohol to deal with the pain.

As a society, we have been slow to learn from that experience, and our treatment of subsequent veterans was not good. In the case of Vietnam veterans, it was quite disgraceful. While we may oppose the entry into any conflict and oppose the decisions of our governments, we need to ensure that we do not convey those sentiments to our service men and women.

The war had yet to conclude, and as a community we established many organisations to support our veterans and their families. South Australia is known as the first state to launch the organisation that eventually became known as the RSL, the Returned and Services League of South Australia, although it was originally called the Returned Sailors’ Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Imperial League or the Returned Soldiers’ Association.

The first ANZAC Day services were held in Adelaide on 13 October 1915, and several weeks later a gathering of ex-servicemen established the RSA. Several sub-branches, including one at Gawler, were founded in the following years. An article in The Bunyip local newspaper states that the Gawler RSL was initially called the Returned Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Association and that it was established 16 July 1919 at a meeting of 35 returned soldiers at the Foresters Hall in Gawler. So the local RSL is entering its centenary year. Elections were held on that day for the main offices of the club, and it was determined that the sub-branch would meet at the hall on the third Monday of each month.

The hall was demolished in 1962 to make way for a pharmacy and laneway access to High Street. It is not clear how long the Gawler RSL sub-branch held its meetings at this location, but in 1919 its president published a column in The Bunyip calling for a dedicated hall for the RSL. The letter states:

The majority of those who enlisted from this locality have now returned, and have already felt the great need of club rooms in which meetings can be held for business and social purposes.

On an unknown date prior to the Second World War, the RSL shifted the location of its meetings from Foresters Hall to the Gawler Institute. During the war, an appeal was launched to raise £4,000 to build an RSL hall on the already-owned block of land, known as the Albion mill site, at the top end of Murray Street in Gawler. This is at the intersection of Murray and Cowan streets.

In a letter to the editor published in The Bunyip in January 1946, the RSL secretary put forward two plans under consideration for the new hall. The first proposal was that a large club room should be erected to incorporate a common room that also would serve for a meeting place. In addition, another room was to be made available to the Fathers' Association and to kindred associations of discharged servicemen. The same room would also provide a space where the ladies associated with the sub-branch could hold meetings and entertainment. A billiard room to accommodate two tables was also included. The estimated cost of this scheme was £4,400 plus about £1,000 for furniture.

The second proposal, which was eventually adopted without dissent, provides for somewhat similar clubrooms to be built as soon as possible; however, the common room would be much smaller. When funds permitted, an assembly room would be added to seat 250 to 300 persons. A committee was established to settle the details of the second scheme, and as soon as it was available, a large dimensional sketch of the proposed building, including the assembly room, would be exhibited for public information.

The Bunyip reported early in 1946 that the RSL's fundraising committee expected the building of a new hall to commence in 1947. Future meetings of the club would continue to be held in the Gawler Institute until the new building was ready. Membership in the Gawler sub-branch had risen to a record 300 members by the middle of 1946. An assistant secretary had been appointed due to an increase in association business. The building appeal had raised more than £1,600 and a committee of the RSL proposed the purchase of a military hut for use as temporary clubrooms.

It was unavailable at that time, but a plan was put in place to purchase the hut and move it to the RSL block upon its availability. The architect's completed plans for the new building allowed for temporary placement of the hut until the new hall was complete. In September 1946, the military hut was removed from Sandy Creek and rebuilt on site at Murray Street. The military hut was part of a camp at Sandy Creek, but it was also an internment camp that was located at Sandy Creek at the time. A three-month drive to assist the appeal towards its initial goal was organised in mid-1946, concluding with a grand carnival on 12 October.

An official ceremony to open the new RSL was held on 11 December 1948. In 1981, a heritage study of Gawler produced for the department of environment and planning stated that the RSL moved from its hall on Murray Street after 'the club took over premises of the Church of the Nazarene' located at Gosford Street and Overway Bridge Road, Gawler West, where it remains today.

For almost 100 years, the Gawler RSL has been supporting veterans and their families in the Gawler and surrounding districts. Club president, Mr Paul Little, and members of the committee are predominantly veterans of the Vietnam War. This Sunday, a new memorial will be officially unveiled in Gawler to honour those who have fought or been affected by any conflict in which Australia has been involved. It is designed to be a very inclusive memorial to reflect the suffering of many people in conflicts overseas.

In my travels around the state, to date, I have had the privilege to meet and speak with veterans in Mount Gambier, Wudinna, Whyalla, Port Augusta, Port Pirie and Barmera. In addition, I have the opportunity to meet on a regular basis with representatives from various ex-service organisations, and a number of themes or issues have emerged. While our dealings with veterans have improved, we still have a long way to go to ensure that the transition to civilian life for veterans is as smooth as possible.

Unemployment rates amongst ex-service personnel are too high and more resources need to be placed on the ground to support the whole family unit of veterans. Equally, the health system needs to respond better to the mental health issues faced by veterans. We need to honour our veterans and their families with deeds, not words—deeds that ensure they receive the support when they need it so that they are able to live life with dignity.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (12:23): I rise today to speak on the centenary of the armistice. It was with great pride that I read the full page feature in The Advertiser yesterday, 6 November, entitled 'Letters from the grave', being excerpts from the new book by Dr Don Longo called Pens and bayonets: letters from the front by soldiers of Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, during the Great War.

It is a publication that I will be honoured to launch on Sunday at the centenary of the armistice celebrations at Moonta. Pens and Bayonets explores the experience of the Great War by rural South Australians, as seen through their own eyes and described in their own words. With genuine pride, reading the pages brings to life the specific voices of Yorke Peninsula's soldiers, and it includes a brief profile on each of the soldiers featured and a historical commentary regarding letters and correspondence during the war.

This latest offering from very talented historian Dr Don Longo, who worked for some 20 years at Adelaide University, is a culmination of the supportive efforts of many in the electorate of Narungga, and the book itself is sponsored by the Moonta RSL. It is dedicated to the memory of John and Hilda Klopp of Maitland who, and I quote Don, 'taught me to love Yorke Peninsula'—a relatively easy task for the Klopps to undertake.

The foreword is written by the former member for Goyder Steven Griffiths, who has a keen interest in local history and whose enthusiasm for his project Don credits as a reason the book was written at all. In the editor's notes, Don also attributes the book's creation to the Yorke Peninsula Country Times and one of its journalists, Rhiannon Koch, in particular. I quote:

The book would not have been written had it not been for the interest shown by the Country Times and its journalist Rhiannon Koch, nor would it have been possible had it not been for the enthusiasm of the then member for Goyder Steven Griffiths, the interest of the RSL Moonta Sub-Branch President Allan Halliwell, and the financial support of the state's ANZAC Day commemoration council.

As stated by Don, many in the electorate deserve thanks, and he also cited the 'descendants of the peninsula's soldiers, sailors and airmen who were generous in providing their time as well as their families' documents, artefacts and life stories'.

In recounting the origins of Pens and Bayonets, Don describes his wife, Lyn, guiding him around Yorke Peninsula townships in early 2014 as being a significant catalyst to photograph the town's memorials to the Great War. At the time, he was working on editing the diary of Sidney Peter King of Koolywurtie, and he was interested in establishing a database of peninsula volunteers in the lead up to its publication at the Gallipoli Landings centenary commemoration in Kadina. Don Longo wrote:

The commemoration was very successful, but it seemed to me, in this centenary period of a war that changed the world like no other, it was important that the momentum and interest generated by the event should be maintained and that the peninsula's contribution to it be remembered…Those who made the supreme sacrifice never had a chance for their stories to be told.

To that end, he approached Kadina's Yorke Peninsula Country Times with a proposal to publish a series of monthly articles consisting of letters from peninsula soldiers under the broad rubric of 'News from the Front', and reports the newspaper was enthusiastic and so were its readers. I can confirm, being one of those readers, that I was enthusiastically looking forward to it each fortnight. Don writes, in his editor's notes:

Indeed, such was the resonance from the articles generated that Lyn suggested I put the letters into a volume that would make them and the writers' stories more accessible to schools and libraries. I thought it was a splendid idea, the rest is, as they say, history.

There is great value, too, in quoting directly from the book's foreword from Mr Griffiths, which best sums up the new book on offer and the service as a historical record that it provides to today's populations in the communities of Narungga and towns across South Australia. The penning of such history in this way, with the collection of actual letters written from local men serving on the fronts, brings to life very effectively the horrors of war, which can only serve as a reminder that we all must do all in our power to ensure such battles and subsequent loss of life does not occur again. I quote from the foreword by Mr Steven Griffiths:

All of us have a story to tell. As a proud resident of Yorke Peninsula, I am excited by any opportunity for the efforts of those who have helped build our wonderful part of South Australia to be recorded in a way that gives others the chance to be aware of the challenges they faced and the opportunities they created for us today.

Dr Don Longo, with the support of the Moonta RSL and SA's ANZAC Commemoration Council, has created with this book a forum for some of the letters from sons of Yorke Peninsula who served with the Australian armed services in World War I to their loved ones at home, to be published.

Communication options abound in the modern age, but imagine the challenges of 100 years ago, with your son, brother, uncle or nephew on the other side of the world, fighting in what we now know to be horrendous conditions, writing a letter home.

It would take months for the letter to arrive. With the letter came a connection with family that gave a belief that their loved ones were safe and, importantly, the needed hope that the end of the Great War would bring them home.

At the start of World War I in 1914, the Australian population was about 4.9 million. Of this, over 400,000 Australians volunteered to serve. For males aged between 18 and 40 it resulted in nearly 40 per cent being in uniform. These volunteers made our nation proud. These volunteers created a respect for Australians around the world.

The opportunity for these letters to be published is a chance for all of us to connect, in a small way, with the events of 100 years ago. For Yorke Peninsula residents, family histories contain thousands of names of those who have served our nation—but in the majority of cases little is known, particularly from a century ago, what these men actually went through.

The preface, from another staunch supporter at Moonta RSL, sub-branch president, Allan Halliwell, also highlights more efforts from Narungga constituents who value not only Dr Longo's important work but the commemoration of the signing of the armistice 100 years ago. It reiterates the importance of giving a voice to the brave men who left family and friends on Yorke Peninsula to fight for our freedom.

In the words of Mr Halliwell, these men left their jobs, farms and families and answered the call willingly as volunteers, with many thinking it may all be over before they got in the action. How wrong they were. President Halliwell states:

The letters were written during quiet periods and give us an insight and sometimes graphic account of the day to day encounters during the Gallipoli campaign and various offensives on the Western Front and Palestine.

Thus, it is with enormous pride—and a humbling experience it will be—that I will play my small part in the journey of these published letters this Sunday by launching Pens and Bayonets.

I am very much looking forward to this weekend of Armistice Day 100th anniversary celebrations, which at Moonta will include a family service under the stars at the Moonta Mines Museum, which has a wonderful display concurrently with the history of the local Moonta soldiers and some wonderful artefacts that have been rescued from the Great War. They do a wonderful job at the National Trust at Moonta to put together that wonderful display.

The celebrations will include a street parade, a family festival, the RSL Remembrance Day service, the Moonta Remembers art exhibition, as well as the formal launch of Pens and Bayonets, the book that I have talked about. It is personal reminiscences that so powerfully resonate and bring to life, and therefore bring out the meaning, the realities of war that serve against allowing such atrocities to occur again. The publication is a valuable contribution to studies of the Great War and the role Yorke Peninsula played in it.

I also had the great pleasure of attending the Wallaroo RSL 100th birthday in August. That was a five-day celebration, organised wonderfully by president, Glen Boyce; secretary, Carolyn Coombe; and the entire committee. They had a busy schedule, starting on 1 August with the Wallaroo RSL sub-branch open day, which again featured a wonderful collection of historical memorabilia, making for quite a full room when they jammed it all in there. It was tremendous to walk around and have a look at all the things they had on display. There was a school picnic and a quiz evening, which unfortunately I was unable to attend but that I am led to believe were wonderful events nonetheless.

On Saturday night, I was able to attend the cabaret night, with old-style dress optional—I took the option of not dressing up, unfortunately, but it was optional—with Peter Goers from ABC radio as the host. He was a tremendously engaging and funny man on the night. It was a great night, well attended, with tremendous organisation by all involved, with some local singers, Makin' Tracks, with Lyn and Sandy, and Janine Mercer from Kadina all on hand.

Perhaps the pièce de résistance was the march on Sunday, which was tremendous; it even had a horse involved. They were going to do the riderless horse but struggled to figure out how to make it go where they wanted it to, so it ended up being a horse with a rider who marched down the street alongside all the returned servicemen and servicewomen we have in the Copper Coast in particular.

They came from far and wide, from RSLs around the state, to celebrate with the Wallaroo RSL on their 100th birthday. It was tremendous work by Carolyn, Glen and the rest of the committee at the Wallaroo RSL, in celebrating their 100th birthday in style. It goes to show that the service of those men and women is not being forgotten. As we say each ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, 'We will remember them.' Through the efforts of authors and historians of the ilk of Dr Don Longo and members of local RSL branches such as the Moonta and Wallaroo RSLs, that is indeed occurring and will continue to occur. Particularly on this 100th anniversary, we do and will remember them.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Duluk): Lest we forget. The member for Flinders has the call.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (12:33): I rise to speak to this motion before the house today, but I also wish to amend it. The first three paragraphs of the motion currently read:

That this house—

(a) notes that Remembrance Day this year marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice to end the First World War;

(b) acknowledges the sacrifices made by many men and women in that and subsequent conflicts to help protect parliamentary democracy over the globe;

(c) thanks all organisations, like the RSL, who have worked hard over the decades to provide support and comfort to those who have returned from overseas conflicts and their families; and

I move:

To amend the motion by deleting (d) and replacing it with the words:

(d) calls on the federal government to do as much as practical to enable all returned personnel to fully reintegrate into our community once they have completed their service.

Remembrance Day this year, in 2018, has special significance. It marks the 100th anniversary of the armistice ending the First World War, which was fought between 1914 and 1918. In fact, many of our troops serving overseas were not actually demobilised until 1919.

One hundred years ago, on 11 November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare. With their armies retreating and close to collapse, German leaders signed an armistice bringing to an end the First World War. From the summer of 1918, the five divisions of the Australian Corps had been at the forefront of the allied advance to victory.

After many heavy and successful battles, by early October the exhausted Australians were withdrawn from battle. They had achieved a fighting reputation out of proportion to their numbers, but victory had come at a heavy cost. They suffered almost 48,000 casualties in 1918 alone, including more than 12,000 dead. In the four years of the war more than 330,000 Australians had served overseas, and more than 60,000 of them had died. The social effects of these losses cast a long shadow over postwar decades.

Each year on this day, 11 November, at 11am Australians observe one minute's silence in memory of those who died or suffered in all wars and armed conflicts. The motion refers to the RSL, the Returned and Services League. That was founded in 1916 by returning Australian soldiers from World War I to continue to provide the camaraderie, concern and mateship shown among diggers during the conflict.

Early in the 1914-1918 Great War, it was evident that those returning from Gallipoli and the Western Front would require great support, along with the families of those who would never return. The ethos of compassion and service remains today as the motivating influence of the league. The purpose of the RSL is to help veterans and their families by offering care, financial assistance and advocacy, along with commemorative services that help all Australians to remember the fallen.

By 1918, death had lost its individuality. The high casualties suffered by most Australian battalions often reduced them to half strength. Constant reinforcements arrived, and many of them did not last more than a month. It was hard to have long-term mates because death was so common and so random. Sadly, death was not exceptional: it was a normal condition. Its uniqueness had an impact only on the soldier's devastated family, and the advice to them normally came as a brief, bureaucratic letter.

In late 1918, after four years of unremitting bloody warfare, Germany—under a newly appointed civilian government and having endured heavy defeats over the previous four months—called for a suspension of fighting, an armistice, so as to secure a peace settlement. At 5.10am on 11 November 1918, an armistice was signed by the Allies and Germany, and the following order was issued to all opposing forces:

Hostilities will cease at 11:00 today, 11 November. Troops will stand fast in the line reached at that hour.

After 52 months of slaughter and loss, the guns of the Western Front finally fell silent—at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month—on 11 November 1918. This moment was chosen by the Allies as the time for the official commemoration and remembrance of those who had died in the war. One hundred years on, it is quite commonly accepted that the war ended at 11am on 11 November, but that is not quite correct; that is when the fighting stopped.

An armistice is not a surrender, nor was this armistice the only one. There was a total of five armistices arranged between the Allies and the US and their enemies. The German army remained, on paper at least, a formidable force, as long after the spring of 1919, the situation was causing some unease in the face of growing political calls for allied demobilisation. The war finally finished partway through 1919, allowing Australian troops and all allied troops to finally be demobbed, and it changed the face of Europe and the face of the world, obviously, for decades to come, the nexus being broken, I guess, when World War II broke out in 1939.

I would like to take a few minutes today to give thought to all the services that will be held around South Australia, and indeed around the nation, this coming Sunday 11 November. Many of the RSLs in our small country towns will be holding services at that time. As members of parliament, we have been invited to many of them but, sadly, at one point in time we can only ever be in one place—and I notice the member for Light nodding. I have chosen this year to attend the service at Gallipoli Beach, a beach north of Farm Beach, north of Coffin Bay on the south-west coast of Eyre Peninsula.

It is so named after the Peter Weir movie made in 1980, I think. He made a movie about the ANZAC landing at the beach at Gallipoli in Turkey in April 1915. Peter Weir searched far and wide for a landscape to replicate that at Gallipoli on the Dardanelles and came across a beach north of Coffin Bay, on the West Coast, and filmed much of the battleground footage there. He also used many locals as extras, and one of the local showgrounds at Yallunda Flat was used for extra footage. It has been known by locals as Gallipoli Beach ever since. It is a rather quaint quirk of history that it has become quite a good fishing spot as well.

A few years ago, a group of local avid war historians came together and decided to form a committee and hold a service each and every year on ANZAC Day at Gallipoli Beach. I congratulate that committee because they have managed to hold a service on ANZAC Day, 25 April, at this particular site each and every year since 2015. They have commemorated in those four years the major battles in each individual year during the Great War. The final hurrah is this coming Remembrance Day. The venue has moved down the beach slightly because the committee has raised enough funds to establish a permanent memorial, as has been raised in many towns right across the state and right across Australia. However, this will be a reminder particularly of the work of this committee and also the legacy of local volunteers in the First World War.

The focus of this year's ceremony is on the womenfolk particularly: the women who were left behind. Remember, it was mostly men who went to war. Certainly some women served in Australia's armed forces, but in those days it was especially the men who served and they left behind mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters and daughters, so a particular focus of our thoughts this coming Sunday will be the women who were left behind, the support they gave their men while they were overseas and also the support they gave them once they arrived home. Of course, that was a critical part of re-establishing themselves into normal life. Some were never able to do that. We recognise that more today than we probably ever have.

My congratulations go to that committee, and in particular I would like to mention Lee Clayton and Kerry Richter as the drivers of that group. There was a larger committee that did a fantastic job over the last four years, and I congratulate them on that. They have turned it into a truly memorable site and had some truly memorable memorial services there, and I am looking forward to the one this coming Sunday.

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (12:44): I rise to support the motion of the shadow minister for veterans' affairs. I think this is a great motion. In fact, I am quite disappointed to see that there is a proposed amendment to paragraph (d), which calls on the Liberal-National federal government to provide the resources necessary to enable all returned personnel to fully reintegrate into our community once they have completed their service.

I particularly support that part of the motion, as well as of course the rest of the motion, because it is so important for us not to simply say, 'We are going to continue to just do our best.' What is needed are resources. For those people who were listening to the fabulous ABC this morning, you would have heard an excellent report by the journalist Louise Crealy, who was looking at some research that has been done by the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, Orygen, and also Phoenix Australia, which is the Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health. That report targets the issue of mental health and focuses on the fact that the greatest crisis point and the highest risk period for servicemen leaving the service is in that period when they are leaving the military and going to civilian life.

The report talks quite a lot about the need for resources. In fact, that is what it calls for. It calls for a more targeted approach and points out that young people in particular who are leaving our military service at the moment need a lot more assistance to connect with services. It says that there are services out there, and those services by and large are doing an excellent job, but that the most vulnerable veterans, who are those young people who have served over the last decade or so in active service, are at huge risk and not connecting with the services that are available or with services that are appropriate to their age and their experience.

That report from Phoenix Australia and the centre for youth mental health, Orygen, particularly calls for more resources, which is exactly what the member for Light's motion calls for as well, and for the federal government to provide those resources to enable returned service personnel to fully reintegrate into our community. That is important. I am sure no-one needs an education on this in this place. That is important because people who are leaving the services face increased mental health issues, health issues, family reintegration issues and employment issues. As I said, this report shows that the greatest risk is at that transition point.

In fact, the statistics found that those with under four years' service, who have recently left Australia's armed forces, are at an increased risk of depression, alcoholism and panic attacks, and they are twice as likely—twice as likely—to commit suicide than other young people. That is a really shocking statistic. These are people who put their lives on the line and go and fight for our country. They are young people giving the best years of their young lives, and they return with twice the risk of committing suicide compared with other young people in our community.

I think that there is a very good case for paragraph (d) of the member for Light's motion to be supported by this house because it is not really good enough now to just say, 'We will do what we can.' This research, and also research from the defence department and the veterans' affairs department that is quite similar to this research, all find that what is needed is a targeted approach, for resources to be invested at that point where largely young service men and women are leaving our military and going into civilian life.

If we can invest resources and deploy our services at that point, that is where we can make the most difference. We should make sure that young people who have put their lives on the line and given up so much for us serving overseas in the last decade or so—and their families—do not have to live with a legacy of poor health, poor mental health outcomes, poor employment and poor financial prospects, simply because they were brave enough to decide on careers in our military, defending our nation. We should make sure that we are doing all we can to ensure their mental health, their employment future and the social support that they need to reintegrate into society

It is important to note as well that one of the people who is joining the fight on this and who has been quite outspoken is former Australian of the Year, Professor Ian Hickie, who now works at the Brain and Mind Centre based at the University of Sydney. He was quite outspoken on radio this morning and said, 'Now is the time for serious action.' Now is the time. We do not need any more research and we do not need any more reports. We know that if we invest in service men and women who are at the transition point of leaving the armed forces we can secure better futures for them. It is no good waiting five, 10 or 20 years for problems to manifest; we need to put in the services straightaway to look after these people.

I would recommend that the house looks at the report on the ABC this morning. It was quite comprehensive and really touching as well. They spoke with a veteran by the name of Sam, who talked about how difficult it had been for him to move from being a military service person into civilian life. He was talking about how it brought on feelings of being ashamed and embarrassed because he has to say to his colleagues, 'I've got an injury that you can't see. You're just going to have to trust me that I've got an injury that I am dealing with from my years of service and I'm struggling with that.'

It is brave for a young man like Sam to do an interview to shine a light on some of what he has experienced in the hope that people like us might listen to his experiences and that we might be in a place like parliament today and look at a motion like this and decide that, yes, people like Sam do actually need not just our best endeavours but resources to be invested in their mental health, their employment prospects—and that of their families—to make sure that they are looked after when they have gone out of their way and been incredibly brave in putting up their hands and serving our nation.

I strongly support paragraph (d) as it stands; that is, to provide the resources necessary to enable all returned service people to fully reintegrate into our community once they have completed their service. I would also like to take the opportunity to recognise that there are, of course, a lot of services on over the weekend. I will be very pleased to go along to the Edwardstown service the Marion council is running. They have a fantastic new memorial, and there will be an unveiling of pavers and signage, which will help better educate our community about some of the sacrifices that have been made in our name as a nation. I look forward to joining them. I also give a shout out to the Plympton RSL, who will be holding their service at the soldiers' memorial at Glenelg.

I will also be happy to join the National Servicemen's Association Remembrance Day. They have their lunch in my electorate, and I will be very pleased to join them in Keswick. I commend them for all the work they have done over many, many decades to support people who have returned from active service and national servicemen who have not been in country.

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