Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (11:00): This year is a very special year for all Australians as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. Communities all over Australia came together on 25 April this year to pay tribute to and remember those who volunteered and paid the ultimate price in the Great War and all the conflicts in which we have since been involved. It is often said our national identity was formed during the Great War, and in particular in the Gallipoli Campaign. When our soldiers landed on the shores of Gallipoli, Australia was a very new nation—eager to prove itself. We showed courage, sacrifice, mateship and determination—all qualities that Australians aspire to today.

While a lot has been said about the ANZACs and many stories have been told, I want to pay tribute today to those who made it all possible—to the historians, the archivists, the storytellers; those who have dedicated their lives to making sure we never forget. There has been some remarkable documentation of our Anzac history I commend the many organisations who helped to remind us all of the past and to understand what life was like a century ago.

Clearly, the most prominent reminder is the remarkable work of the Australian War Memorial. The Australian government provided more than $28 million in funding towards the redevelopment of the First World War galleries to ensure all visitors during the Anzac Centenary could truly understand the history and traditions. Founder of the Australian War Memorial, Charles Bean said:

Here is their spirit, in the heart of the land they loved; and here we guard the record which they themselves made.

I would also like to congratulate Brendan Nelson, Director of the Australian War Memorial, and his team for the amazing job they do week in and week out.

As the House of Representatives member on the National Archives Advisory Council I also wish to acknowledge the outstanding work they do. They too put together an extraordinary collection for Anzac Day, called 'Discovering Anzacs', which allows people to search for stories of those who served. It is no easy feat to collect, catalogue, archive and digitise these pieces of history, and the National Archives are to be congratulated for the high quality and quantity of this collection.

I also take this opportunity to mention the State Library of Queensland, who had impressive collections to mark this important event. When searching for photographs to profile on my social media pages, I was delighted to find a number of local images of our community at the time of the First World War in their collection I was particularly delighted when I found photographs of soldiers practising military drills at the Gallipoli Barracks, which is based in my electorate. The same expressions were on the faces of the young men in the photographs as those I saw when I attended the farewell for the troops heading to Iraq recently. It makes it all the more possible to imagine how the ANZAC troops were feeling.

This brings me to speak about the social media campaign that helps bring to life the people who lived during the First World War—ANZAC Live. It tells the stories of nine real people who were all involved in different aspects of the war. The authors of ANZAC Live used the diaries of these characters to create the social media profiles of a nurse, a factory worker, an explorer, an engineer, a country boy, an artist, a carpenter, a sailor and a groom. These characters are engaging with us on Facebook and Twitter, answering questions of what they are going through and how they are feeling—all in their own words as a result of these diaries. It is a remarkable way to show our nation's history and the creators, Newscorp, are to be commended for finding a way to engage with people, particularly the younger generation, in such a modern way that allows them to understand the thoughts and feelings of our ancestors

I particularly thank Senator Ronaldson, the Minister for Veteran's Affairs, and his office team for the time and effort that went into ensuring the commemorations were perfectly planned—supported, of course, by many officers in the department. I would also like to say a special thank you to his advisor, Robert Hardie, who dedicated so much time to the Centenary of Anzac project.

On a local level there are hundreds and hundreds of people who have participated in some way to make these centenary commemorations special. Firstly, I would like to thank my local Ryan Centenary of Anzac committee, who assisted with the incredibly difficult job of deciding which few of the many talented groups should receive the Centenary of Anzac grants. This committee comprised Stewart Cameron from the Kenmore-Moggill RSL Sub-Branch; Merv Brown from Gaythorne RSL;    Trevor Dixon from the National Memorial Walk and now President of .Kenmore-Moggill RSL; Ron McElwaine from the Sherwood-Indooroopilly RSL; Jeff Hilder from The Gap Pioneer and History Group;    John Pepper from the Gap RSL Sub-Branch; and Chris Austin and Kevin Alcock from the 9th Battalions Association.

The Centenary of Anzac Local Grants projects have been incredibly significant for our community in our local commemorations. These projects included a book to document and honour the 97 former Brisbane Boy's College students who lost their lives during the 1st and 2nd World Wars and Afghanistan; an upgrade to Kenmore South State School's Anzac Memorial; a Walk of Remembrance at Ferny Grove State High School; a memorial Garden at Ferny Grove State School; a memorial seat and garden at Toowong State School; an upgrade to the Contemplation Building and the installation of an eternal flame at the Gallipoli Barracks Memorial Walk; the Mates for Mates WW1 Queenslander Challenge Walk; and a book examining the lives of 86 local soldiers who were killed in World War One, produced by the Sherwood-Indooroopilly RSL Sub-Branch.

While I have just quickly listed these projects—and I am sure many other members have similar ones in their own electorates—each one of these is so special and so detailed. I look at the one for Toowong State School, which was a memorial seat designed by a local artist. In the metal of the seat are all the floral emblems from Australia and, on top of that, there are little holes where people can put poppies, which not only spell out the date of the Centenary of Anzac but also have space for a little poppy for each of the people from the Toowong district who gave their lives during the war. So much thought has gone into that. They have planted poppies that are going to flower in time for Remembrance Day and, of course, rosemary in the garden. Each of these individual projects is just so detailed and thoughtful.

Like so many families, I also have connections with the Gallipoli campaign and the Anzac commemoration. My father's cousin, after whom he was named, fought at Gallipoli and survived, only to lose his life later at the Battle of Romani. My great-grandfather, Sir George Pearce, the then Minister for Defence, actually decreed Anzac Day when he was Acting Prime Minister, although, if you read a recent book about him titled ANZAC and Empire, initially he was not very enthusiastic. I quote:

The following year, as the first anniversary of the landing approached, Pearce, now acting Prime Minister, did not regard the events of 25 April as worthy of memorialisation. For Pearce, Gallipoli was a military defeat, and he anticipated … that, as the war progressed, it would be replaced by an AIF victory, which would eventually provide Australia with a suitable national day. On 15 April 1916 he told Fisher that while 'informal celebrations are going to mark the anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli, and the day has been named "Anzac Day"', the Federal Government was not going to hold any ceremonies, in the belief that 'after the war is over it will then be more opportune than now to consider which event of the Australian Army is the more worthy of remembering'. But as 25 April approached, Pearce realised that 'Anzac Day' would be a significant day of communal mourning and remembrance of the war dead, although not a national day of the type he wished to establish, and into which Anzac Day subsequently has evolved. He recognised that the government would need to follow the public mood. It was too late to organise a Federal Government ceremony, but on 25 April Pearce took part in a tree-planting ceremony on the King's Domain in Melbourne. He released a statement that the Australian army would always have 'that inspiring example of Anzac'. On 16 May Pearce's Cabinet approved regulations to prevent use of the word 'Anzac' for commercial purposes.

That last point is very interesting. It is probably the reason that adjacent to the Indooroopilly Uniting Church in my electorate of Ryan is what I understand is the only Anzac memorial church in Australia. At a recent seminar conducted by local historian Jim Gibson, he noted that immediately after this Anzac memorial church was erected, legislation followed, meaning no other buildings could be named 'Anzac'. At the time, locals were concerned the building would be classified as illegal but the Governor-General allowed it to stay. I am sure there are many other interesting stories just like this all over Australia which have been brought to our attention through the Centenary of Anzac commemorations.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all of the dedicated volunteers throughout the community who have been involved in these commemorations, from the teachers, parents and children who prepared school services in their spare time to the RSLs who spent countless hours to make sure the community services went off without a hitch. On all levels, national, state and local, we as Australians have come together to make the centenary special. All of these individuals and groups have done a brilliant job, bringing to life the stories and the people who were everyday Australians 100 years ago. We are who we are because of our Anzacs and, after 100 years, it is just as important as ever to make sure we are preserving these memories. Thank you to those who make sure their stories are never forgotten.

We must always remember that Anzac commemorations are not about celebrating and glorifying war but rather highlight the tragic consequences of conflict. Lest we forget.

Mr GRIFFIN (Bruce) (11:11): I join with others to talk a little about the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, the establishment of the Anzac tradition and the nature of how we as a nation have been seeking to commemorate those events of a century ago.

As a former Minister for Veterans Affairs, I had the privilege to represent the Australian parliament and also the Australian government on two occasions at the dawn service at Gallipoli on Anzac Day. For those who have had that opportunity it is a rare opportunity, an opportunity of a lifetime. For anyone who is considering at some stage making the pilgrimage to Gallipoli, I would certainly encourage you to do so.

It is a confronting place which highlights very much the trials and tribulations of all those who fought there 100 years ago. It is a daunting place in terms of the courage, sacrifice and carnage that took place there 100 years ago. It is also a strangely eerie place because as you look around those hills and valleys you know that the land is sown with the blood and the bodies of many, many thousands of young men, predominantly, who fought and died in that place.

They were men from nations all over the world because this was part of a world war—many, many Turks, who died defending their homeland, Australians, New Zealanders, Sri Lankans, French, English, Newfoundland, you name it. I would like to emphasise that, although this was a location where Australia was seen to come of age as a nation and the Anzac tradition was born, it is a place of significance for many countries, where soldiers of many nations fought and died.

I remember being there in 2010 when we made an announcement as a government with respect to setting up the processes for the commemoration of the Centenary of Anzac. I had discussions with, for example, former Prime Minister the Rt Hon. Malcolm Fraser, who recently departed, about what we should be trying to ensure we do. Of course the important thing was to ensure that we increased public awareness. He also took the view, and I agreed with him, that it was very much about education and understanding, that it ought not be about glorifying war but it ought be about understanding the courage and sacrifice of what took place there and why we should always see war as at times a necessary action but also as a last resort. It was very interesting talking to him about that, in terms of what we should seek to achieve through this process.

I think it is also about diversity. As other speakers mentioned—and I know the member for Hasluck spoke yesterday about this—Indigenous Australians were part of those forces in World War I and, frankly, in every conflict that Australia has fought. It is something which Indigenous Australians should be very proud of, what their people were able to do as part of a nation that, frankly—let's be honest—has not often been particularly embracing of their issues or of their needs. In fact, for many of them often it was actually a fight to be able to get to the fight in the first place. But then it was a fight well fought.

Migrants: this country has been based on migration, really, since European settlement. The circumstances are that when you go back to those first Anzacs, you can pick a nation and you will find people who either arrived directly from there or who were directly descended from people who were from there. People from all over the world were part of the Australian Imperial Force at that time and right the way through World War I.

When we look back at that Anzac tradition, I suppose some of us think of the 'bronzed Aussie'. Well, I do not think it is a bronzed Aussie; I think it is a whole range of different colours and circumstances. When we look at the qualities that come through from them, they are qualities that we all would like to identify with. We would like to identify—and we want to identify—with that sense of courage in the face of adversity. We want to, and can, see ourselves as a nation being proud and willing to fight for what is right. We see it as being a tradition which encompasses mateship and care and compassion for others in times of adversity. I think those are all qualities that are important. They are important in terms of how we see ourselves but also how we wish others to see us. It is important that we remember that those are the qualities that are that Anzac tradition.

And as we look through World War I, let's not forget the Western Front. Let's not forget the many thousands who died in the fields of Flanders and in northern France, because so many more died there than actually died at Gallipoli. Let's not forget that from a military perspective that tradition was the earliest stage of establishing what has been a proud tradition ever since—through World War II, through Korea and through Vietnam. The problem you always get into, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that once you start naming conflicts in the environment of veterans' affair—as I have learned!—is that if you miss any out at all you will in fact at least receive emails, and quite often suffer considerable conversations about why you have missed any particular conflict. So I have named many, but not named all. I will not name all; I do that intentionally. I do it intentionally to say this: everyone who puts on a uniform and who has served their country, regardless of the circumstances and the location, has done so in that tradition—that Anzac tradition—of which they are all rightly proud.

It is important that we remember the courage, the sacrifice and the suffering. It is important that we remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. It is also very important that we remember those who came back grievously wounded, whether that be of the soul or of the body. It is also very important that we remember the suffering that occurs through war, whether it be the grief of loss or injury, then visits upon the families and friends of those who come back. Whether they be the war widows or the children of veterans, the fact is that those who have been through conflicts and suffered from conflicts are often not actually at the conflict. They suffer in the years that go on from there, and we should always remember that.

As others have said, we should not glorify war, but we should understand that there are times when it is necessary. We should understand that when it is necessary we should, as the Anzacs did, go forth and do what must be done. But we also need to understand that there are implications as you go on in the subsequent years. And so the support that we provide to veterans and to veterans' families is central to honouring that Anzac tradition.

I think that everyone who has been involved, whether they be the Department of Veterans' Affairs, various governments, ministers et cetera—the various committees that have been set up across electorates around the country—have done a very good job in that commemorative role. But I think that the most important part of the commemorative role is about educating the young about the sacrifice of those who came before them; about what those ideals mean in concrete forms with respect to the way that we should live our lives and the way in which we should conduct ourselves as a country; and that we should ensure that we honour those who gave so much in the years ahead by how we actually live to those ideals. We must remember that when the marching stops and the band ceases to play, the battle still goes on for those who have returned. It can often be difficult to deal with them—and I know that as a former Minister for Veterans' Affairs—but we should always try our best to understand them, try our best to ensure they get the assistance that they genuinely need and, through that process, honour that tradition—the tradition that dates back to that time when those young men came ashore 100 years ago.

Mr CRAIG KELLY (Hughes) (11:21): It gives me a great privilege and honour to stand here in this chamber to speak on this motion on the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli.

In my electorate we had five separate locations where we commemorated Anzac Day. There was Panania, organised by Gary Murray of the Panania Diggers; Woronora, organised by Barry Grant of the Woronora RSL; at Liverpool in Bigge Park, organised by David Sutherland and Kevin Wass of the Liverpool RSL; for the first time we also had a service at Menai, organised by Andrew Manson of the Menai Chamber of Commerce; and at Engadine, which was organised by the Engadine RSL, coordinated by Jack Abernethy. I congratulate them all on their fine efforts on commemorating that day.

I attended the service at Engadine in my electorate. About two years ago, behind the memorial in Engadine, a Moran health facility was constructed. It is approximately an eight-storey building. I congratulate the Moran Group because on the outside of the building they had placed a large bronze silhouette of a digger so that as the morning light came up and the first rays of sun came through you could see that silhouette standing seven storeys high. At Engadine I think we had some of the largest crowds that the township of Engadine had ever seen. The town square was absolutely chock-a-block with people shoulder to shoulder. The crowds filled back past the road and across the other side to the shops. It is hard to put an exact number on it, but it would have to have been close to 10,000 people—more than double the number of people in past years.

On that Anzac morning in Engadine, we commemorated and we remembered the 750 Australians who lost their lives on that very first day of the landings at Gallipoli. We remembered the eight long months that they continued to fight and we remembered the words of Private Victor Nicholson, who, after witnessing his mate killed at Gallipoli, wrote: 'I didn't cry unless Gallipoli was one long cry. If you cried once you never stopped. There were friends going every day and sometimes every hour of the day—wonderful friends. You cried inwardly. That is all you could do.' And we remembered that by the evacuation in December more than 8,700 Australians had lost their lives. We remembered that those who survived Gallipoli went on to the horrors of the mud, the blood and the gas of the Western Front, where another 46,000 Australians remain buried today. We remembered that by the time the guns of the Great War fell silent more than 61,000 Australians lay dead in foreign fields. We also remembered those 155,000 soldiers who returned home carrying injuries of war and that in the decade after the war, of those who were injured, another 60,000 returned soldiers died after returning from World War 1. Of course we remember the widows and the families who were left to grieve. We also remembered those immortal words, 'Lest we forget', first penned by Rudyard Kipling in the poem Recessional. Those words are a plea. They are a plea that we should never ever forget their sacrifice, their extraordinary courage and their perseverance against all odds. And, we should never forget that the very freedom we enjoy today has not come for free; it has been paid for through their blood and through their sacrifice. So it is a plea that we must be ever vigilant to protect those freedoms that were so hard won.

Millions of Australians turned out on Anzac Day morning. We said we had not forgotten, we said we will not forget and we said that for as long as our flag flies over our great southern land we never will. But in remembering them I think it is fair to ask the question, 'What if there were no Anzacs?' A former Prime Minister suggested that World War I was completely devoid of virtue. I beg to differ. One of the stories goes that we were tricked at Gallipoli by the nefarious British, who sat drinking tea on the beach while the Australians were slaughtered and sacrificed. But the facts remain that Gallipoli is not just an Australian story—there were more French killed in Gallipoli. Remember this is a time when German troops were fighting on French soil and the French were fighting for their homeland, yet France lost more people fighting at Gallipoli than Australia did. As for the nefarious British, they lost over 20,000 troops at Gallipoli compared to Australia's 8,700.

One of the other great myths is that our troops were dragooned into war by politicians or members of parliament. But that overlooks that there were something like 16 serving members of parliament at that time who left the safety of parliament and fought and served in wars. The New South Wales parliament has a plaque that commemorates the deaths of two members of that parliament who left the parliament to fight and who were killed in wars. Because our Anzac Day is not something where we celebrate war and Gallipoli was actually a defeat and a flawed campaign incompetently executed which ultimately, by itself, achieved nothing, perhaps we do not give true respect to what the Anzacs achieved.

Considering what the Anzacs achieved, I think it is important to remember why we became involved. We became involved because a militaristic Germany invaded a neutral Belgium. It is well documented in a couple of history books: The Rape of Belgium: the Untold Story of World War 1 by Larry Zuckerman; Rehearsals: The German Army in Belgium, August 1914 by Geoff Jeff Lipkes; and German Atrocities 1914: A History of Denial by John Horne and Alan Kramer. Those books document how German forces looted and destroyed much of the countryside of Belgium, killing innocent civilians including women and children. We know from the atrocities that there were close to 6,000 innocent Belgian civilians who were killed by German troops. So the question we had back then was: should we allow the Kaiser and his armies to conquer France and Britain? Or should we stand with Britain and its dominions and take a stand against German militarism? I believe our history shows that we had no alternative but to stand and fight.

What would have happened if there had been no Anzacs? Close to home, in the Pacific theatre, if there had been no Anzacs the German colonies at the time, including German New Guinea, would have been occupied by Japan. Because of the Anzacs, Japan only occupied the colonies up to the equator. It was Australia that occupied German New Guinea and the surrounding islands. If there had been no Anzacs, as we went into 1930 with a militarist Japan, we would have had German colonies on our doorstep. How would the Battle of the Coral Sea and the battle of Kokoda have been different if Japan had been in possession of German New Guinea after the First World Year?

We can never forget the efforts of the Australian troops on the Western Front and the difference they made. Historians tell us that the Germans came very close to winning World War I, and so we should be remembering the military genius of General John Monash. The efforts of General Monash and the troops on the Western Front made a crucial difference; although they comprised just 9.5 per cent of British forces in France, they captured 18.5 per cent of the German prisoners, 21.5 per cent of all the territory gained, and 14 per cent of the guns. It was Monash's military genius that thwarted the German attacks. After the war, German commander Erich Ludendorff remembered the allies' attack in his memoirs. He said:

Our fighting machine was no longer of real value. Our capacity for year had suffered harm even if the far greater majority of our divisions fought bravely. August 8 marked the decline of our military power and took from me the hope that...we could restore the situation in our favour … The war had to be ended.

In 1921, Marshal Foch, the French general during the war, said:

… the passionate valour of the Australians served as an example to the whole world. You saved Amiens, you saved France. Our gratitude will remain ever and always to Australia.

It was British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery who said of Monash:

I would name Sir John Monash as the best general on the western front in Europe.

Our troops in World War I on the Western Front made a difference, and they could have made the difference between winning and losing. In considering the question, 'what if there were no Anzacs?' the history of the world would be quite different. At the end of World War I we could have seen the European continent dominated by a militaristic Germany, ruled by the Kaiser. We would have seen a France depleted and perhaps a France that would have followed Russia down a communist path. We would have seen Germany controlling Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and the Channel Ports. It would have been a completely different world, with the Japanese on our doorstep. What difference could this have made to our world?

One thing that history has taught us is that freedom counts. Freedom counts in many respects, because freedom allows the individual to own property, the rule of law allows entrepreneurial activity, and that is what creates the wealth. I will give a few examples of things that have happened to improve our world since World War I which may not have happened if we had not had those freedoms. If we look at infant morality, back at the time when World War I started, 70 children out of every 1,000 died within their first year of life. Today that number is down to four per 1,000. Since the start of the 21st century, four million children have been born in Australia. Over the past century, through innovation, wealth creation, better standards of health and better standards of living and prosperity, the improvement in child mortality means that there are 280,000 children alive today who would not be alive if we had the rates of infant mortality that existed at the time of World War I. If we look at maternal mortality, we have lifted that through improved living standards, improved health standards and greater wealth creation. For the four million children born in this century there would be 24,000 mothers would have died in child birth if we had not lifted those maternal rates of death. Simply: freedom counts. Our world would be a completely different place today if not for the Anzacs. We owe them a great legacy and that is something we should never, ever forget.

Mr PERRETT (Moreton) (11:36): It is with great pride and sadness that I rise to speak on the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. As so many Australians have done already this year and last year, we are commemorating those brave Australians who went off to represent this young nation in World War I.

I would like to start by particularly acknowledging the RSLs in Moreton, who did such a fantastic job on Anzac Day in making sure that the events were well organised and also that the individuals from each area were appropriately recognised for their service. Anzac Day is always a busy day for politicians. I was not able to get to every single RSL event in Moreton but I wanted to note the RSL services in my electorate. I am only going to mention the President for each branch—obviously there was a cast of thousands staging these events. I note: Mr Des Broome, the President of the Sunnybank RSL Sub-Branch; Mr John Stachan, the President of the Stephens RSL Sub-Branch; Mr Kevin Fitzgerald, the President of the Yeronga Dutton Park RSL Sub-Branch; Mr Kevin Alcock, the President of the Sherwood Indooroopilly RSL Sub-Branch; and also Mr Tony Stevenson, the President of the Salisbury RSL Sub-Branch. As I said, I was not able to attend all the services and I even ran out of office representatives because there were so many commemorations in my electorate.

From my observations in Moreton and having been to these events for the last decade or so, there seemed to be at least double the normal crowds and sometimes nearly triple the normal crowds. People certainly turned out for the start of the centenary of commemoration. At all of the events I attended, it was great to see schools in attendance and it was great to see families and young people turning up to recognise what would be great grandfathers or great great grandparents or grandmothers who were involved in the great War, the War to end all Wars as it was called—until we had a war barely 18 or 19 years later that killed nearly triple the number.

The centenary of the Gallipoli landings has been addressed in great detail by many of the speakers before me. I have revisited the history, the competing history and the contested histories in other speeches and in other ways. I particularly note that the Sunnybank RSL in my electorate a few years ago erected a memorial to the Australian-Chinese service personnel, not just in World War I but in other events. Chinese Australians were not classed as citizens, were not able to vote but went off and gave their life for this nation.

We are also seeing the stories of Indigenous Australia who also had horrors visited upon them when they returned because they were not treated as Australian citizens and were not treated the same way when it came to handing out soldier settlements. Some of the stories are starting to emerge. I am looking forward to exploring with the Indian community in my electorate some of the stories that did not necessarily make the official histories but are stories that do exist, that are part of family histories and will be told in the years to come. I know that there were Muslim Australia that landed at Gallipoli and their stories will be told as well.

Obviously it is important that we do not to say that there was one Gallipoli story; there were many Gallipoli stories. Especially as we now look into the Turkish archives, we are getting a more complete picture of what happened. There is no doubt the courage that was on display at Gallipoli on that first day, but, obviously, there are serious questions about the planning and the decisions that were made from that day. Obviously with history we can get things perfect when we look back as to what should have happened.

Before becoming a politician, I was a lawyer but before that I was a school teacher. When I started teaching, the first play that I had to teach was The One Day of the Year by Alan Seymour, a play written in 1958. It will be familiar to many Australians. When that play was written, it was almost like the Anzac veterans got one day of the year where their courage was recognised. Here we are, 100 years on and you could not say that. In fact, the parliament dedicated money to setting up committees to make sure that their service is recognised—a great initiative and some great work done by the RSL and members of that committee in my electorate. So we cannot say these Anzacs, these diggers are only recognised one day of the year. Now their story is well and truly a part of the bigger Australian story.

I think it is important to still learn the lessons from that play, The One Day of the Year—that is, to recognise the current ADF personnel or those that have only recently taken off the uniform. Because, as I am sure the member for Bass would attest, many of his colleagues do not necessarily end up in a comfortable position. We have seen stories in the paper of the significant numbers of homeless veterans, not just in the US but here in Australia, on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. While it is important to recognise what went on 100 years ago, I would suggest it is even more crucial that we lend a helping hand to those returned service personnel who have only recently taken off the uniform.

I know the RSLs in my electorate recognise that many of these veterans are falling through the gap. The average age of RSL members is getting older and older because they are not getting the recent veterans, the veterans from East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq. We do need to do more as a nation to reach out a helping hand to those people. At Annerley when I made a speech on Anzac Day, a veteran—I will not name him—came up and said, 'Thank you for mentioning that in your speech.' He did two tours of duty to Afghanistan and he said, 'I have been written to three times by the government ever since I came back, and one of those times they misspelt my name.' I think the mood that he was voicing was that there was not a helping hand and support.

I want to touch on one other personal element in concluding this speech, and that is from my family. When I am in Canberra, I stay with my Auntie Pat, and we were talking about this the other night. She was talking about her Uncle Jim. Her Uncle Jim died in World War I, so she never met him. That was her dad's brother, so my great-uncle, who died in World War I on 20 September 1917 in Belgium: James Alphonsus Morrissy. She was still using that term this week, talking about her Uncle Jim, the man that she had never met, but her dad always spoke about the Jim that he knew. Obviously, when people die in a family, that absence is always present. I had a sibling who died before I was born as well, and they are always present, even though they are absent. To hear my aunt this week talk about her Uncle Jim reminded me of how horrible it was for so many Australians.

I have here the particulars for my great-uncle Jim Morrissy, James Alphonsus Morrissy, written in my mother's mother's handwriting. This is written by Ellen Morrissy, and that is my mum's name as well. Just looking through the writing, you can see the heartache that would have been in so many families because 52,000 did not come back, in a small nation—not to mention those who came back wounded; that is another story for another day. The absence of the 52,000 who did not come back changed the shape of Australia, I think. Every street had some heartache. Not every family but most families had someone who was affected. In fact, my great-grandmother says so here. The official form asks:

Was he—

Jim Morrissy—

connected with any other Member of the A.I.F. who died or distinguished himself. (Please state Relationship)

In her writing, she says:

Uncle returned wounded and first cusin returned limless

She misspells 'limbless'. My mum's last name is Morrissy, and that was a misspelling of Morrissey, because they were poor Irish. They knew their name but did not know how to spell it, so I joke that I am from a family of dyslexics. Here in her writing, with the same name as my mum, she talks about the aching heartache of missing her son.

People have talked about the historical significance, but I think that individual families being affected did also shape the character of this nation, particularly in a volunteer army. Admittedly, there were two referendums that were close—about politicians deciding whether or not we should be able to have conscription—but that changed the shape of Australia. I particularly mention that note from my great-grandmother Ellen Morrissy. As I said, she had the same name as my mum, who passed away four years ago today.

I commend all the previous speakers and all those that will come after in acknowledging the anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli. I thank the parliament for giving us time to so do.

Ms PLIBERSEK (Sydney—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:48): Last month, as we do every year, we commemorated the anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. This year, the 100th anniversary, concentrated our minds most acutely on that war, on that campaign, on that bloody day. But we remembered also, as we always do, those who served and those who fell in other wars, and those who have returned, some much changed. Anzac Day has become, for Australia, the day each year when we mourn the lost and we honour those who have served, and all of those who still today serve, our nation in our armed forces. In the past few months, as we have marked the centenaries of so many milestones of that long-ago war—a war so savage and so all-consuming that it earned, for a while, the name 'the Great War'—we have all been reminded that for those who served, and for those who serve, war is not one day a year.

One hundred years ago this week, burial parties were working on the Gallipoli peninsula to inter those men who died in the Krithia valley in the battle which raged from 6 to 8 May 1915. Their graves are unknown. They are among so many of the dead of that war whose final resting place is still not known to us. Their stories, so many stories, are not complete. It has been a hundred years, but there is still more for us to learn about those men, about those battles and about that war. And, for those who are buried somewhere in that Krithia area, our responsibility to them is not yet complete. We should aim to find those final resting places and to mark them appropriately. There is still more we owe to the men who lost their lives and to the families who lived with their loss, including laying our lost to rest with honour.

One hundred years ago today, the brutal struggle on the Gallipoli peninsula was ongoing, and it would rage for many months more. The landing at Anzac Cove was Australia's first major involvement in a war which, in the following years, became known for that horrific waste of human life, for the suffering and slaughter on an industrial scale. But it was far from our last. The Gallipoli campaign was the bloodiest the world had then yet seen. The names, in English and in Turkish, of the landmarks of those battles tell the story: Hell Spit, the Ridge of Blood. In the years that followed, other names would become known for the horror and waste of war too: Verdun, Passchendaele, the Somme. But they and Gallipoli would be known too for the indomitable human spirit which can find a joke, a moment of beauty or a gesture of kindness even in such places and such times; for the poetry; for Simpson and his donkey; for the Christmas truce; and for the brief armistices on bloody battlefields to allow each side to bury and mourn their dead.

The men who served in the Dardanelles and in the campaigns that followed have become legends in the century since, striding across our national imagination, bolder and braver than soldiers of other nations, laconic larrikins. But they were not legends then; they were something far greater than legends. They were ordinary men.

They came from all around Australia. Some were born here, some born in other corners of the globe. Among them were the descendants of convicts and of currency lasses. Among them were immigrants and the children of immigrants from Scotland and Sweden, from Canada and China. And, despite the army rules designed to prevent indigenous Australians from enlisting, some among them were from our country's ancient and traditional custodians. Those Indigenous Australian Anzacs fought for a country that had little room for them and gave them little honour on their return. They fought also for the men, the mates, who were shoulder-to-shoulder with them among the shot and the shell. If their bravery and gallantry did not change the policies of government, it did change the minds of many men in the trenches with them, who saw them fighting and dying, as one white returned soldier would later write, 'like the grandest of white men'.

The Anzacs were mostly not professional soldiers. They came from city streets, from stockyards and from suburbs, and it was to them that those who survived returned, many of them with wounds visible and invisible. Every city, every suburb, every country town has its cenotaph and its list of local sons who never came home. If Gallipoli united us as a nation, it united us in grief as well as pride. If Gallipoli is a defining moment in our nation's life, it is not because the men who fought and fell were larger-than-life, mythic heroes. Their courage to charge and to stand fast was the courage of men, not of myths, and all the greater for it. Their refusal to take anything too seriously—not themselves, not their suffering and certainly not authority—was quintessentially Australian. Their tender kindnesses to each other, their loyalty and their sacrifice gave us our finest model of an ideal of mateship—those mates on the beaches, in the trenches, from all walks of life, from all around Australia and from all around the world.

Let us be inspired to not only admire them but to emulate them, to be as they were: their best selves even in the worst of times.

Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (11:54): I rise to support the motion moved by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Tony Abbott, acknowledging the hundredth anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. I stand in this parliament representing the electorate of Dobell, which only a couple of weeks ago turned out en masse to pay respects and honour our Anzacs. Local ceremonies witnessed record crowds as tens of thousands of locals attended dawn, morning and afternoon Anzac ceremonies. This attendance demonstrates the significance of the legend and spirit of the Anzacs.

A century ago, young Australians forged a legacy that has stood the test of time. On 25 April 1915, during the predawn hours, members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gaba Tepe, now known as Anzac Cove. This landing was part of a larger strategy to provide support to Russia against a German attack. The landing at Gallipoli was designed to block any Turkish retreat from the south, as well as reinforcements that were advancing from the north. History will remember that it was a doomed strategy. The landing quickly deteriorated into a long and terrible day. This day quickly became a week, then a month, and did not cease until the evacuation of our troops was completed on 20 December 1915. 8,141 Australians paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The Anzacs we lost joined more than 40,000 British Empire and French troops and 85,000 Turks who all paid the ultimate sacrifice. This was a horrific loss of human life, a toll that our young nation had never experienced before. In total, 417,000 men volunteered and enlisted to fight in the first Australian Imperial Force. In 1914, Australia's population was 4.9 million. Australia's casualty rate was almost 65 per cent, with more than 61,000 killed in action and a further 155,000 wounded in action.

On the Gallipoli battlefield the Anzac legend was born—a legend of courage, mateship and sacrifice. As Australians, we each remember and reflect upon the spirit of Anzac and on those who served Australia throughout the Great War.

My family remembers private Ernest Marshall Baskerville, my husband John's late great-uncle. Ernest was a farmer from Quirindi in New South Wales. On 11 December 1915, he departed Australia from Sydney on board RMS Mooltan as a member of the 1st Infantry Battalion, 9th to 12th Reinforcements.

In September 1917, Ernst was injured at the Battle of Polygon Wood in France. A month later, in October, Ernest Marshall Baskerville died of his wounds at Le Treport in the north-west of France. Ernest Marshall Baskerville's story is just one of 5,770 Australians who were killed at the Battle of Polygon Wood, and it is just one of the 61,000 stories of Australians who paid the ultimate sacrifice during World War I.

I recall visiting Ernest's grave some years ago, and as I paid my respects in the small cemetery I was touched by the ages of those whose final resting place is half a world away from home, and as a mother I grieved for the mothers who never saw their sons' final resting place. The thought of your child heading off to war and leaving behind their family, never to return, is a hard one to fathom.

The war and its consequences penetrated all corners of Australia. Private Hector Philip Crane was born and lived in Wyong. Hector was a 23-year-old labourer who took the oath to join the army on 11 May 1915. He was appointed private of the Liverpool Depot 9th Reinforcements, 13th Battalion. On 15 March 1917, Hector was wounded in action when serving his nation in France. He died of his wounds a few days later and was buried at Dernancourt Communal Cemetery in France. Hector Philip Crane was awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and qualified for the Memorial Plaque and Memorial War Roll.

On Anzac Day 100 years on from the landing at Gallipoli, the Central Coast community joined together to remember the sacrifice of those Australians before them. Services at The Entrance, Toukley, Ourimbah and Wyong saw record attendance and demonstrated the resilience of our community, who had endured a testing week, impacted by storms and floods. An estimated 10,000 people flocked to Memorial Park in The Entrance and, as the dawn broke, we remembered the sacrifice that today allows us the opportunity to live in such a welcoming community.

As I attended various services I heard inspirational stories of courage and sacrifice. The tales were shared by young and old—from school students whose great-grandfathers had landed on the shores of Gallipoli to returned servicemen who had left mates behind on the battlefields of Vietnam. The importance of the legacy of the Anzacs was appreciated by all who took the time to reflect on the good fortune of modern Australia. Services throughout Dobell saw students from many of our local schools pay their respects, thanking the Anzacs for the world they are growing up in today. I was particularly proud of the number of young students who attended local services, eager to learn more of the Anzac legend and to pay their respects.

In the week following Anzac Day I was contacted by Kerry Wellham, Principal of Brooke Avenue Public School, with a special tale of two young Australians. The story came from Len Blundell, Vice-President of the Tuggerah Lakes National Servicemen's Association. Each year Len and his wife, Gwen, hand out rosemary sprigs to those in attendance at The Entrance morning ceremony. This year Gwen was approached by two young boys—TJ McMahon and Nathan Hughes—who offered to help hand out the rosemary to those arriving at the service.

The boys said that they had also been at the dawn service and had waited at The Entrance all morning in order to attend a second service. Their willingness to attend both services illustrates their respect and interest in the history of Anzac and the significance of the commemoration. Both boys were extremely polite and are a credit to their parents and our community through their good manners and willingness to help. This story confirmed to me that the Anzac spirit is still alive and the sacrifice of the Anzacs will be remembered long past this year's centenary commemorations.

I would also like to share the story of the Redfern Aboriginal Anzac Day commemoration held each year by the Aboriginal community to honour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service men and women and those who served in non-military support roles. This year the march was led by members of the Glen Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Centre in Dobell. The march not only recognises the original Anzacs who served at Gallipoli and on the Western Front but also commemorates more than a century of service by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service men and women. Respect is also paid to the women and other family who kept Indigenous families and communities together while loved ones were far away and after they returned.

Across our community, regardless of race, religion or background, we joined together to commemorate Anzac. For many the terror of war is incomprehensible; however, this does not prevent us as Australians from honouring those who gave their tomorrow for our today. I would like to particularly thank my local RSL sub-branches along with the Dobell Centenary of Anzac Committee, whose efforts over the past year enabled our community to unite and pay homage to the Anzacs.

Since my election I have had the great pleasure of working with local RSL sub-branches, historical societies, surf clubs and Wyong Shire Council to ensure the Dobell community is well represented and benefits through the array of commemorative activities. The Dobell Centenary of Anzac Committee considered many exceptional proposals that captured both the significance of the centenary and the importance of community involvement in the commemoration. In the lead-up to Anzac Day I had the opportunity to see these projects come to fruition, including Toukley RSL Sub-branch's commemorative plaques at local schools, commemorative medallions for local school students provided by The Entrance Long Jetty RSL Sub-branch and the Wyong Family History Group's historical banners that depict the history of locals who fought for Australia in World War I.

I congratulate members of the Soldiers Beach surf-lifesaving community who marked Anzac Day by participating in a commemorative row through the Dardanelles, around the Gallipoli Peninsula and finishing south of Anzac Cove. The boat they used was donated to the Turkish surf-lifesaving movement as a gift from the Soldiers Beach surf-lifesaving community.

Then there are the Wyong Shire Council's Centenary of Anzac flags, which are proudly flying above roads of The Entrance, Long Jetty, Toukley and Wyong and above Tuggerah Straight, and the Tuggerah Lakes marching band commemorative shirts for their performance at The Entrance morning service.

As I meet with local community groups, school students and other members of our community I am reminded of our community's determination to honour the Anzac spirit and those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to provide our freedom. Our local RSL sub-branches and I were united in our determination to make the Centenary of Anzac a commemoration for all ages.

We are so fortunate here in Australia to live free of the horrors of war. We must never forget the sacrifice and loss experienced to obtain such freedom. As it is our duty and responsibility to honour and remember the Anzac spirit, it will be our children's responsibility to inspire future generations of Australians to keep the eternal flame alight and the spirit forever in our thoughts. I am extremely proud to be working with a community passionate and dedicated to ensuring the Centenary of Anzac is commemorated by all.

I would like to personally thank the members of the Dobell Anzac centenary committee for their time and assistance in ensuring our local community benefited from the best possible projects to mark the Centenary of Anzac. I would also like to thank the many members of the local organisations who volunteered their time to develop these projects on behalf of the broader community.

The characteristics and qualities of the Anzacs live on in today's Defence Force men and women who proudly serve our nation. Since my election I have had the absolute pleasure of participating in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. The program provided me with a unique opportunity to obtain a practical understanding of the workings of the Australian Defence Force. This year I travelled to the Middle East to visit troops in the UAE and Afghanistan. My visit reinforced my belief that we are truly blessed to call Australia home.

I am in awe of the professionalism, commitment and dedication of the men and women of our Defence Force. On behalf of the Dobell community and all Australians I acknowledge their commitment to ensuring we maintain our freedoms. I also acknowledge their sacrifice through being deployed and away from their families and friends and applaud them for their courage, dedication and service to Australia.

During one of our local Anzac services this year Eric Bogle's And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda was recited. One of the most moving lines from it reads:

But as year follows year, more old men disappear.

Some day no one will march there at all.

It is our duty as Australians to ensure that the sacrifice of our Anzacs and those who followed in their footsteps are remembered. We owe the success of our great nation to the Anzac spirit. We owe our freedom to the Anzac spirit. A minute silence will never be enough to pay our ultimate respect and gratitude to those who gave their tomorrow for our today. For their sacrifice we are eternally grateful. We will remember them. Lest we forget.

Ms MacTIERNAN (Perth) (12:07): This Anzac Centenary has been quite an extraordinary experience for this country. There is no doubt that every community needs stories. We need stories, we need legends and we need those things that bind us and create a sense of shared endeavour and a notion of us being together as we go forward. This is particularly important in an immigrant society. We are a community that has a lot of diverse history. We come together from all different parts of the world. We as Australians need to have a very strong collective identity in order for us to develop that real sense of common purpose that is going to be absolutely essential for us to make a society that is strong, good and create opportunity for all.

There is no doubt that the Anzac story and, indeed, the story of the First World War has been an important part in developing a shared story and a collective identity. I want us to think very carefully about the nature of this story. What are the true lessons and messages that we should be taking from the story? What are the messages are lessons that we can take from that that will ensure that the Anzac legend, the Anzac story and the story of the endeavour of the First World War remain truly relevant and accessible to all of the community and do not become something that has the potential to become exclusive, that this story is not told in such a way that will alienate some of the community and create a sense of division and separateness?

There have been some incredibly positive ways in which this story has been told, and I think there have been ways in which this whole endeavour has been commemorated that, in my view, have been less helpful in doing the job that needs to be done. I started my Anzac exploration, I suppose like all Australians of my vintage, growing up with a lot of stories of Simpson and his donkey, with the Anzac endeavour being very much woven into our primary school history. But it was not until I was around 13 and I discovered CEW Bean's history of the Great War at the library that I really came to have an understanding of what this war was all about. When I read Robert Graves's Good-bye to all that at the age of 15, I began to see that perhaps some of the stories that we had heard about this war may have been somewhat simplistic.

I think it is important to remember that when the horror of this war was still raw in the hearts of Australians—CEW Bean acknowledged this when speaking to veterans in 1931—most of the community wanted 'to obliterate all memory of the Great War, cut it out of their consciousness, if that were possible'. For many, many decades this was not a war to be celebrated; this was a war that had entrenched within it a great tragedy. It was a demonstration that there was perhaps somewhat of a reckless disregard for the lives of ordinary soldiers and ordinary people, a preparedness to keep a war going for a very long time without there being a true understanding of the absolute horror that was being perpetrated on those men who were fighting in the trenches, on those nurses who were there supporting them in a field hospitals and on families across Australia.

I am sure I am not the only person who is always profoundly moved when I go to a tiny town that has a war memorial. On those war memorials are so many names. These war memorials often seem to me to be, as they glitter with quartz, to be the crystallised tears of so many families, wives, girlfriends, fathers and mothers who lost their loved ones. The cataclysmic nature of a population of something less than five million losing 61,000 men, and with somewhere in excess of 110,000 men returning to their land in a damaged and injured form, is beyond our comprehension today. I do not think in all of this commemoration that we should be forgetting that.

I do not think we should be forgetting the need to critique how this war was allowed to begin but, more importantly, how this war was allowed to extend for the amount of time that it did. We should reflect on whether or not enough critique was being given at that time to the fairness and justice of perpetrating this level of chaos within these communities. I really do think it is absolutely important that we are prepared to critique this war, that this does not become a holy war.

It is essential, however, that in doing that we learn the extraordinary lessons that came from that war:

the celebration of the character of those Australians who fought in the Great War and those characteristics that they showed there, setting a standard for courage, endurance, humanity and good humour. Despite all of the horrors that they were confronted with on a daily basis, their ability to nevertheless see humour was quite extraordinary. I think these are great role models for Australians today. We do not have to praise this war and we do not have to believe that this was a war that was fundamentally fought for freedom to admire, respect and draw inspiration from the way in which those Australians conducted themselves during that war.

I know this at a very personal level, and this may sound a bit naff. During the very difficult times—my first four years of building the Perth to Mandurah rail line when it was under a lot of criticism—sometimes I used to think I cannot keep going, but I would think about those men on the Somme who stayed in those horrific circumstances year after year. My thought was that if they can do that, I can do this thing which was infinitely less hard than what they did. I say to our school students, think about this. Do not talk about this war in terms of this protecting our freedom; talk about this war in the way in which these men and women conducted themselves. Draw inspiration from that, and you can use that in your everyday life. This is not something that needs to be confined to the battlefield.

I want to also acknowledge the people involved in our community in commemorating these great events, and my Anzac committee that was made up of Peter Farrell, the president of the Highgate RSL, historian Lenore Layman and Councillor Reece Harley from the City of Perth. I think we have put together a good program; hopefully there is more to come. We have had a rebuild of the Bassendean War Memorial. We have had a fantastic play written, The Dreaming Hill, which has been performed both in Perth and in Albany.

Again, I think this has been a very important occasion. Let us hope that we do not hear talk of Christian martyrs, as unfortunately was a reference at one of our events, but rather that we see this as a story that celebrates the great Australian character, that character, as Sir John Monash, our great and distinguished general, said, that emerged from the democratic traditions that we enjoy, that emerged from the education system that encourages independence and freedom of thought. It is a really important celebration. I want to thank all of those in our community who were involved in this commemoration. Let us hope that we can make sure this is a story that will drive us forward for the next 100 years. Thank you.

Ms MARINO (Forrest—Government Whip) (12:18): I am very moved to speak on the centenary of Anzac. Late last year, I had the honour of laying a wreath for Australia at Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium, the largest Commonwealth war memorial in the world, where there are 1,360 Australian graves, 791 of those are unidentified—those as on the inscription, 'Known only unto God.' This has the most Australian burials in the world with graves representing all but two of the 60 infantry battalions of the Australian 5th Division. Tyne Cot lies on ground captured by the Australian 3rd Division in 1917 during the Battle of Broodseinde. These are the Flanders fields, where between August and November 1917 five Australian divisions suffered 38,000 casualties—the most ever in any war. As I walked down the row upon row of crosses, I was struck by how young so many of these men were. I was given little wooden crosses to place near these gravestones which had handwritten messages on them from Australian children. What a wonderful tribute from today to those men of the past, from young children so far away in Australia showing their respect.

Beside the remnant of a German pillbox lies the grave of Captain Clarence Smith Jefferies, who received a posthumous VC for his bravery at Passchendaele. His epitaph is very eloquent. It reads: 'On fame's eternal camping ground, their silent tents are spread.' Standing amongst the headstones, it makes you feel as though this applies to every grave—their silent tents.

I also visited the Polygon Wood cemetery, the site of the Australian 5th Division memorial. This came at great cost—there are over 2,000 headstones in this cemetery. I was particularly struck by the headstone of Lieutenant Harold Roland Hill of the 25th AIF battalion, killed on 4 October 1970 at just 22. This wonderful Australian character, the strength that we acknowledge and celebrate as part of our Anzacs, had on his headstone the words of his last letter that he was due to send home to his mother. It reads: 'I'm all right, Mother, cheerio.' That is what he sent to her from that horrendous battlefield.

I also had the privilege of meeting the Menin Gate buglers, the group of volunteers who play the last post every evening at 8 pm in Ypres. They have done this since 1928—silent only during World War II. It has been played over 30,000 times. One of the buglers was a very senior gentleman, as you would expect. I said to him, 'What a huge commitment you and your wonderful group of volunteers have made, playing the last post every day.' He looked at me very seriously—I will never forget it—and said: 'The Germans were determined to destroy our nation and our people.' I will never forget this; he said: 'All we are and all we have is because of Australians' blood on our soil.' I will never forget this comment, and I would ask every Australian not to forget this comment, because each one of those young men lying in those graves had a family and friends who loved them—families who, to this day, have made a huge sacrifice, as well.

My mother was a World War II widow. Her husband was killed in New Guinea. So I understand exactly, as do my two beautiful older sisters, what that sacrifice is and why the respect shown by the Menin Gate buglers is so important to the families of those who lie in those graves. They, like my mother, probably waved their husbands and sons off on a train. For Mum, it was the girl who worked in the local post office who rode her pushbike out to the farm to tell my mother her husband had been killed. This is why Anzac Day is so important. As my sister said, they did not need Anzac Day to remember. For them, it was real every day that they did not have a father. This is why the record number of Australians at Anzac services is so important.

That is what we saw this year—like the number who attended the dawn service at Kingston Primary School. Each child in the school had made a ceramic poppy, and we had this beautiful glow from these poppies in a leaf pattern on the ground. Every child made a poppy; what respect that is. Record numbers of people attended the dawn service in Harvey. There was a beautiful, respectful silence—that is all I can call it—at the new Harvey War Memorial. Record numbers of people attended the Brunswick service. There was standing room only, with 450 people in a tiny little community hall. The same happened in Bunbury at their service. Well done to all of our RSLs and to the Australian people who came out in numbers to show their respect.

I want to acknowledge that my own grandfather fought in World War I. He came home deafened by gunfire. There was probably family after family all around Australia who had someone with this experience—people who were wounded in battle and who came home with a range of conditions they never went away with. There are those who lie in graves at Tyne Cot and Polygon Wood and in so many theatres all around the world where Australians have seen service.

This year was particularly special and I wish that my mother had been alive to see it. She had, for 60 years, been the only person in Brunswick who laid a floral tribute even when there was no service. I would drive past and see that little bunch of flowers from her garden every year. It was an extraordinary commitment and, as a result, my family gets to lay the very first wreath at Brunswick every year.

I want to finish with the Ode of Remembrance. It is so special to all of us. The poem was written by Laurence Binyon. It was first published in The Times in London in 1914. It has been recited at ceremonies since 1919. I think we all know that, but there are parts of it we may not know.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Lest we forget.

Ms KING (Ballarat) (12:26): I too want to join with the many voices in this parliament to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings—the Centenary of Anzac. It is incumbent on all of us in this place that we do so on behalf on the hundreds of men and women from our constituencies who left for those fateful shores, many of whom were never to return home. On behalf of the people of Ballarat and their descendants I make this speech.

Anzac Day this year marked the centenary, but centenary commemorations have occurred a lot earlier than this, with 2014 commemorating the first disembarkation and the first people enlisting. It is really important to remember that these commemorations will go on for several years to come because the war went on for several years; it was not just one day. Many who went did think it was going to be over by Christmas, but it was not. It was a war that changed the course of this world's history and the course of the personal lives of many of the people we represent.

In reflecting on the centenary commemorations I want to congratulate the many communities, large and small, across the electorate of Ballarat for the respect and the beauty with which they have commemorated this. There were schoolchildren putting poppies over the entire avenue. There is a fantastic new memorial at Navigators, and Bungaree has done the same; as has Yandoit, a very small community with very small numbers of volunteers. They have pulled together new memorials that did not exist before. They have come and restored old memorials, many of which were forgotten. They drilled for hundreds and hundreds of hours to find the stories of local men and women and to record them—not only to record them but to make sure they stay part of the commemorations for all of those communities for years to come. Ballan had a fantastic exhibition in the RSL Hall where schoolchildren were asked to reflect on what it might have been like to leave and to farewell parents, and to write letters to those parents.

It is not often when you are funding a road project that you get to commemorate such a historic event. Unfortunately, in the 1980s, when we were busily building new highways, we cut the Ballarat Avenue of Honour and left a part of the avenue forgotten for over 20 or 30 years. The funding for the Western Highway duplication, the extra $1 million—and I want to acknowledge that the member for Grayndler was very good as minister in putting this forward—has allowed us to re-open a railway crossing to reconnect the lost part of the avenue. The Avenue of Honour and the Arch of Victory that commences the Avenue of Honour in Ballarat, were paid for through fundraising by the local community, by the 'Lucas Girls'—lovely women who decided after the war that we had to have our own avenue. That that avenue stands to this day as one of the longest and most beautiful avenues of honour in the country.

I am so proud of the many events that occurred across my electorate. There was the fantastic book by Gary Snowden, a local amateur historian who literally walked for hours and hours the entire Ballarat old and new cemeteries finding graves and headstones that had any mark or connection with World War I and then researched meticulously the history of all of those men and some women. They Answered Their Country's Call is a terrific book for anyone who has ancestors in Ballarat from World War I or to start a research into whether you have an ancestor in one of the cemeteries who had a connection with Anzac. Whether it be the commemorations in Trentham and Buninyong, from Miner's Rest to Bacchus Marsh, they absolutely have done us proud, and I want to thank my community for that.

But the thing that is so important about these commemorations are the connections. It is about the connections with people, and I think the commemorations have richly delved into those histories and what it has meant for individuals. I want to share a little story about our family's connection. Our family does not know whether we have anybody in our family tree who served in World War I. That is a history of our family that we will try to rectify. But I went to a Victorian talk by former Premier Ted Baillieu, who was at that stage leading the Victorian commemorations for Anzac, and one of the projects that former Premier Baillieu talked about was a project that the ADFA school has done, which is called the AIF Project. It is a very simple project. If you Google the AIF Project and you know that you live in a house that is over 100 years old—as I do—you can enter the details of your address and see whether someone who lived in your house enlisted in World War I.

I went to this talk and I thought, 'I must do that'. I got home at about midnight and my husband and I were sitting up in bed and I got the IPad out and thought I would just Google it. It was an extraordinary feeling to suddenly see pop up our address in Ballarat with the name John Lawrence Simpson—who, to the day that I was looking at it, had enlisted in the AIF and was part of the first disembarkation from Australia. I would like to talk very briefly about John.

John lived at the house that I now call home. But, like so many of his generation, he answered the call to arms and joined the tens of thousands of Australians who now lie forever in a foreign field. He was just 22 years of age when he enlisted in the AIF on 18 August 1914, and he was among the first to enlist in Ballarat in the original 8th Battalion. Just one month later, on 19 October 1914, he sailed with the first contingent embarking from Melbourne on board Transport A24 Benalla.

Like many of those who rushed to enlist, he first saw action at Gallipoli, fighting through the entire campaign from landing to evacuation as a private, corporal and finally a sergeant. He also fought at the Ferry Post and Tel El Kebin. After surviving Gallipoli, Simpson gained a commission as an officer and went to France with the 60th Battalion. It was there that he was wounded and invalided home. The battle is known as Fromelles. In a 24-hour period across 19 and 20 July, Australian troops suffered around 5½ thousand casualties in that disastrous attempt to break the German lines—and John was there.

By any measure, John Simpson had done his bit. He had, against the odds, survived both Gallipoli and the Western Front, been wounded and then repatriated. Amazingly, he decided to re-enlist, and in July 1917 he sailed once more form Port Melbourne—this time for the last time. On 26 April 1918 he was killed at Villers-Bretonneux in France—a very important battle in the war. John was only 25 years old when he died. He was a young man who shared the corridors and the rooms of the house that my family now live in and he went to the same primary school that my son now attends. There were six young men from the street that I live in in Ballarat who enlisted—some of them on the same day as John. John served under Pompey Elliott, who was a fine Ballarat man. It was said of John:

During the preliminary advance at Villers-Bretonneux, East of Amiens, on the night of 24th/25th April 1918, this Officer rendered valuable assistance in the consolidation of the line. He then went out on patrol and rushed an enemy machine gun post containing several of the enemy. The patrol, which was under machine gun fire from two other enemy posts had two wounded and one killed This officer, and 4 men approached the position where he lay. He shot the officer and two men. At nightfall he rejoined his own lines, bringing his wounded in with him. He was 14 hours in this post under continuous machine gun fire. At a later stage in the operations this gallant officer was killed by enemy shell.

Looking at John's records, you see the incredible impact that this had on his family.

Since we learned about John, we have been trying to trace some of his family to invite them to our home, but it looks as though he does not have any surviving ancestors. The family lived in the house until the 1970s. On looking at John's war record, right up until his brother was in his late sixties he was still sending letters to the Department of Defence to find out more about John. His two sisters never married and they continued to live in our house until the 1970s. You can see the extraordinary impact that this would have had on the family.

So I want to encourage everybody who lives in a house or on land that is over 100 years old to look up the AIF Project, because it is those connections to the real men and women who left from our neighbourhoods and suburbs, who walked the hallways and lived in the homes that we live in, that will mean that we will forever remember the sacrifice that they made.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Whiteley ): I thank the member for her interesting contribution and give the call to the member for Murray.

Dr STONE (Murray) (12:36): It is a privilege and an honour to be able to speak in this great parliament of Australia on the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. We would not have the democracy that we have today if it had not been for the extraordinary valour and sacrifice of our serving men and women through the wars that we have engaged in since the turn of the 20th century.

I have to say that in my electorate I am extraordinarily proud of this year's work—and it will go on for several years to come—in remembering those who enlisted in the First World War. We are a rural, regional community, so we had a bigger proportion of men, and some women as nurses, volunteering compared to urban areas. There were, in fact, seven Victoria Cross awardees from my electorate of Murray. One was awarded his Victoria Cross in the Boer War, but that particular recipient, our magnificent Maygar, was also an enlistment in the First World War. Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Maygar from Euroa served bravely. He was wounded in the Battle of Beersheba after being on Gallipoli peninsula, and that is where he is buried, in a cemetery in Israel. He was the last of the officers to evacuate the Australian troops off Gallipoli and he made the comment that he did that without losing an Australian, but it was a shame that there had not been that level of efficiency and effectiveness during the campaign.

I want to describe our seven Victoria Cross awardees. Sadly, only three survived the war. There was Captain Frederick Tubb from Longwood. He survived the Lone Pine battle at Gallipoli, where he won the Victoria Cross, only to be killed in Belgium. He is buried in Belgium. His dear mate, also from Euroa, Corporal Alexander Stewart Burton, who has no known grave at Lone Pine, was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Those two men showed extraordinary valour.

One of the tragedies of the First World War was that when men—often brothers or cousins, even fathers and sons—enlisted, they were very often given consecutive numbers and sent to the same brigade and the same unit; so if they were sent on a suicidal mission, such as at the Nek at Gallipoli or at Lone Pine, they all died together. The tragedy of my electorate of Murray is that there are tiny, beautifully kept surviving cairns—or sometimes bigger cairns in places that are now just districts where there is no town left at all—and memorials listing the two and three brothers who died at the same shocking episode or within days of one other. I cannot imagine the horror of the families receiving the first information, then the second, then the third that three of their sons had been killed. That is not an uncommon experience of the First World War in the small district communities.

Another First World War Victoria Cross awardee from Murray was Lieutenant Frank McNamara from Rushworth. He was in the infant Air Force. He had an extraordinary show of courage when he landed his plane—he had been wounded himself—and rescued a fellow airman in his own small plane that had been downed behind enemy lines. He could not get the other person's plane working again. He rushed back to his own plane and, despite his injuries, managed to get this airman into his plane and rescue him, all behind enemy lines and under fire. Lieutenant Frank McNamara survived the war, extraordinarily, and went on to have a brilliant career in the Air Force and in the Second World War. He became an Air Vice Marshal in World War II and finally died in Britain in 1961.

Then there is my great uncle, Albert Chalmers-Borella, Victoria Cross awardee, who grew up around Boort. He also miraculously survived the war. He was a mate of Albert Jacka, our seventh Victoria Cross winner, who was also from the same area. I will come back to Lance Corporal Albert Jacka, because he was the icon or pin-up boy for recruitment in the First World War. He was an extraordinary man. The general opinion of the day was that he should have been awarded two Victoria Crosses. He was an extraordinary man who sadly died of his injuries at the age of 39. He died trying to improve the lot of the veterans, the returned First World War soldiers.

Finally, let me mention, amongst our Murray electorate Victoria Cross recipients, Private Robert Mactier, who is buried in France. He received his Victoria Cross posthumously. He was from Tatura, a small town not far from Shepparton. He carried out an extraordinary deed of courage in the face of enemy fire, taking out machine-gun posts, going from post to post before he was finally killed at the third machine-gun post under enemy fire.

We are so proud of our seven Victoria Cross winners in Murray. I have produced a booklet which gives their citations in full and describes their lives. But of course, we must remember all of our first World War I veterans, the survivors of the war and the volunteers who never came back. We must remember that the losses decimated some districts to the point where they never recovered as district entities. I mention places like Maloga and Prairie—tiny little places that lost a generation. And then we must remember that their sisters never married—there were not the numbers of men returning for them. Their fiances had been killed, or they never had the chance to marry. They were often called maiden aunts or spinsters—that was the terminology of the era. 'Spinster' is an unkind term, I think, but there were so many maiden aunts of that generation.

I need to refer to the fact that it was not just a case of the half million volunteers who went off to the First World War from our tiny nation of just four million people. We acknowledge them, of course. There were an extraordinary number who never came back. But the toll on the returning men's mental and physical health continued unabated, with many experiencing trauma well after the war. I want to refer to the words of Albert Jacka, that great Victoria Cross winner. In 1929, he said:

Whenever you see four returned soldiers, you should think of one more soldier who did not return. Out of those four who returned, three were wounded at least twice. I do not think that the public takes into account the tremendous effect that the war had upon men who returned. More than 22,000 soldiers have died since their return, and this is some indication of the terrible effects. Thus, when you see a returned soldier in court, or 'down and out', do not judge him too harshly, but remember the terrible experiences through which he has passed.

Let me remind us: in 1930 30,000 Australian returned servicemen had died since the Armistice—30,000! That is approximately seven returned service soldiers dying every day. And when you think about those seven dying every day into the twenties and the thirties in Australia, you have to think of their wives, their mothers and fathers and their sisters and brothers who nursed and cared for those returned men—mostly men. Families looked after their appalling physical injuries and the stress and trauma that they were trying to survive emotionally.

There were so many suicides. Amongst the Victoria Cross awardees—I will not mention his name—was a Western Australian awardee. He was in desperate financial straits and went to pawn his Victoria Cross in a pawn shop. He was offered 10 shillings, so he shot himself—tragic! The good thing is that the Western Australian media said at the time that this was a courageous soldier who died for his country. They did not reflect on the sad loss that he had taken his own life in such desperate circumstances.

Remember the stretcher-bearer, born in Ireland—a Victoria Cross recipient who died in a straitjacket 15 years after the war, never having recovered from the fact that for four days he was out bringing wounded back from no man's land on the Western Front. It was four days without rest and it broke him physically and emotionally. He ended his days in a very unhelpful mental institution in Victoria, a great Victoria Cross awardee. And the great Pompey Elliott, who took his own life at the age of 65. It is those sorts of impacts.

I do not think that I need to remind people about the horrors of war, but we need to remember the sacrifice those extraordinary men and the 2,000 nurses contributed as volunteers to make our country great. Their character is what we now embrace as the ideal for all good Australians. I will never forget my grandfather, Alfred Hayward Thomas Bawden MM of the great 4th Light Horse of northern Victoria, who died too young in his early sixties. Lest we ever forget.

Mr MARLES (Corio) (12:46): With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, before I just acknowledge Matthew Kinnia, who is a student at Western Heights College in my electorate. He is in parliament this week as part of the Rotary Adventures in Citizenship program. Matthew, it is fantastic to see you here and it is a great pleasure for me to have you in the advisers box.

Anzac Day this year was a genuinely remarkable day. As I attended the predawn service at the Geelong Peace Memorial in Johnstone Park at quarter past four there were literally thousands of Geelong citizens who had been there for some time, waiting to be a part of this first service of this remarkable day. From there many were going to the dawn services that happened in Portarlington, in Lara and in Norlane. And many in my electorate would have gone to the incredible dawn services in the neighbouring electorate of Corangamite—in Torquay and in places like Queenscliff. There were literally thousands—tens of thousands—of people in Geelong who were commemorating this day on a grand scale, and it was wonderful to see.

It raises the question about the meaning of Anzac Day, which I believe has become something much greater now than it was even 20 years ago. We have seen the phenomenon of an increasing number of people participating in Anzac Day events. I think it does behove us to think about what this phenomenon is and the significance of Anzac Day.

It is, of course, the way in which Australia commemorates its 'veterans' day', if you like. It commemorates the service and the sacrifice of those who have served our nation in armed conflict. We have heard so many wonderful speeches in this place and, indeed, around the country about that service. I think that as a way in which we commemorate the service of veterans, that we do this in as dignified and respectful a manner as any nation in the world.

I think it also tells the particular story of the place that World War I has within our nation's history. It was a conflict which, as many have remarked, occurred very early on in our nation's life. From a population of just under five million people it saw 417,000 people enlist for service—156,000 of whom were injured, including my grandfather, and 60,000 of whom lost their lives. For a young nation to experience that kind of sacrifice so early on in its existence placed upon us a firing of the soul that has left an indelible mark which is with us to this day. We can see the traces of that mark when we go to any town or village in this country which has more than 50 or 60 people in it: there is there a monument particularly to those who served and lost their lives in the First World War. Our consciousness and our identity were formed very much within the experiences of that conflict.

This leads then to the other aspect of Anzac Day which very much is about our nation's identity. Former General David Hurley, a former chief of our Defence Force, remarked in Martin Place in Sydney on Anzac Day that those Anzacs who participated in the First World War—their deeds during that time—did much more to forge our national identity than did the acts around the time of federation. I think that is a very acute observation and that it is absolutely true. The way in which Australians behaved and performed in those adverse circumstances was the first time that we had presented ourselves to the world as Australians and we did so in a way which demonstrated such great honour. It demonstrated resilience and it demonstrated a camaraderie which was remarked upon by all those who looked upon the way in which Australians engaged in their work—camaraderie by officers and privates. There was an egalitarianism in the way in which we did what we did. We were tough; those Anzacs were remarkably tough.

This element comes through in so many of the histories around the First World War—a sense of humour in the face of adversity. I think all of those characteristics are what we all think it is to be an Australian—that is what it means to be one of us, and it is why this day is so important for us. In many respects, for me, I think it is now our national day. It really is the day on which we celebrate what it is to be an Australian, as bearing those characteristics which were first put on display to the world by those remarkable Anzacs. Identity matters and, in understanding our identity, knowing our history matters.

I particularly want to tell the story of one of the Centenary of Anzac grants which I was able to participate in, which was in respect of the township of Lara in the north of my electorate. In Lara there were just over 100 people who enlisted in the First World War; 24 of them died. It was a very high casualty rate compared to the overall casualty rate. Very soon after that, in 1918, one of the very first avenues of honour to be planted anywhere in Australia. It was a circle of sugar gums around the main oval at the Lara football ground. Research was done by the Lara RSL—Bruce Challoner did fantastic work to discover this history—and a monument was paid for out of the Centenary of Anzac grants, and it now tells the story of five of the remaining sugar gums. They were part of the first avenue of honour within our region and one of the first within our country. In doing that, a piece of local history has been reclaimed. We can remember the fact that those trees were planted by people who did not know those 24 soldiers simply as names on a roll but knew them as their brothers, sons and husbands. The people who planted those trees knew them personally and they cared, and those trees a hundred years from now will be remembered for the reason they were planted. I think that is a wonderful thing. In telling that story, I really want to commend the Centenary of Anzac grants because it allowed us to do similar monuments within my electorate, as all members will have in theirs. For me, it was with the Geelong football club in St Leonards. For our children looking forward it was at schools like St John's Lutheran School and North Shore Primary School. Both have put memorials in their schools so that kids coming through will know, through their history, their identity so that they know the community to which they have been born and they understand that they are a part of something which is bigger than themselves.

Finally, for me, my personal identity and my story is imbedded in the context of Gallipoli and Lieutenant Leo Pearce. He was my great uncle who landed on Gallipoli at 8 am on 25 April 1915, within four hours of the very first landings. He was a stretcher bearer who went on to win a distinguished conduct medal on the Western Front, and his brother, my grandfather, served on the Western Front as well and was awarded a military cross. The two of them at a point in time met on the Western Front. Leo was in Gallipoli on the original Anzac day. On the same day, the grandfather of my dearest friend John Hamdi Eren, the current Victorian Minister for Sport and the member for Lara—which is a seat that sits at a state level within my seat of Corio—was there but in the forces of Mustafa Kemal, fighting to defend his homeland. If they could have spoken to each other on that day—they were within the vicinity of each other—and could have known that two generations down the track their descendants would be the best of friends and colleagues representing the Labor Party in different parliaments in this country, what an extraordinary conversation that would have been. It says so much about the special relationship which exists between Australian and Turkey, born out of conflict and, in that sense, a relationship which I think is unlike any other between two countries in the world. It says a lot to me about the significance of this particular conflict, the significance of that relationship and the significance of Gallipoli and the First World War to our nation's history and about who we are. In that, I absolutely want to add my words to say lest we forget.

Mr PITT (Hinkler) (12:57): It is with a great sense of pride that I rise to speak about the Centenary of Anzac and the contribution of the people of Hinkler to the Great War and other conflicts.

I grew up in the Hinkler region hearing stories about the courage, relentlessness and sheer bloody-mindedness of our old people. It was not until I got older myself that I understood the enormity of the loss and the injuries both physical and psychological they received and lived with. Their generation understood sacrifice in a way that I hope my children never have to.

The Centenary of Anzac is an opportunity to reflect on the significant contribution the people of Hinkler made to the Great War and how that fateful day in 1915 shaped our region. Before WWI, Bundaberg Base Hospital had 16 beds to service a community of just 9,000 people. Hervey Bay was little more than a collection of small seaside villages. Men had an average life expectancy of just 55 years and women 58 years. Sugar mills were relatively new and the region also had several juice mills. Locals often talk about how during the Great War the Wide Bay Burnett region was thought to have lost more of its young men per head of population than any other region in the nation. Records show Childers had a population of about 1,200 in the early 1900s. Some 360 local men enlisted; 85 did not return. You only have to look at our local commitment to building and preserving memorials to understand how devastating the Great War must have been to our tight-knit community. The Isis region, for example, has five monuments commemorating the contribution of residents from Cordalba, Apple Tree Creek, Doolbi, Childers and Woodgate. These monuments give us a physical place to reflect on the fortitude shown by our forebears. They came from all walks of life to take on what was billed as an adventure. The battlefields of WWI were anything but a dream; they were, quite simply, a walking nightmare.

I would like to share some of the untold local stories about conflicts Australia has been involved in and to express what Anzac means to Hinkler residents. These contributions are from residents in my electorate in their own words, which were included in my local Centenary of Anzac brochure. Firstly, Alan Larsen, a Vietnam veteran from Toogoom said:

Growing up in the Dawson Valley, I had no idea that I would one day follow in the footsteps of my two great uncles who served in the Light Horse Regiments in WWI.

Just three months before my 19th birthday I crashed my Triumph motorcycle at reckless speed, giving me the kick I needed to hastily enlist in the military.

I commenced recruit training in 1962 before being posted to the 1st Battalion the Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR). It was a life changing experience for a Dululu farm boy, but one I excelled at and revelled in. We were sent to Papua New Guinea in July 1964, and in May 1965 we landed in Vietnam where we were attached to the American 173d Airborne Brigade (Sep) as the third rifle battalion. Our service in Vietnam was to start a new chapter of the ANZAC tradition.

The war had intensified and shortly after our arrival, 1RAR set up Fire Support Base Coral, an operation that lasted for 28 days. I distinctly remember someone singing 'Waltzing Matilda' at the height of battle during the second attack. A month later I was medevaced home with a recurring fever and discharged.

The unique combination of strength, bravery and larrikinism that epitomises the ANZAC spirit lives on in a new wave of military men and women, who are willing to fight to keep this country what it is: a land of true choice and freedom!

Here are the words of Alf Dennis, of Dundowran Beach, who went to Gallipoli for the centenary after the ballot:

On the 25th of April 1915, my father— a stretcher bearer in the 5th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF)—landed on the beach at Gallipoli in Turkey. The slaughter that followed touched every household in Australia. The loss of so many young men is something most would choose not to remember. However, we choose to commemorate that fateful day for several reasons; including the fact it's a means to pay our respects. The Great War changed Australia from being a far flung colony of the mighty British Empire to a proud land of respected people.

Before WWI, Australia was generally considered to be a poor land with a convict background. What followed was a succession of good leaders and the evolution of a unique attitude in its citizens. Today, our way of life is the envy of the world.

Australia cares for its veterans better than any other country in the world. Anzac Day is also a time for diggers like me to be grateful to the citizens who elect governments (of both colours) that honour and support our veterans.

In this changing world, I respectfully ask our new citizens to help maintain what they came here for, and not try to turn it into what they left. To our current and future generations; I thank you for your willingness to continue our Anzac traditions.

Jenny Waldron, of the Bundaberg and District Ex-Service Women's Association said:

I spent three years in Reserves firing weapons and driving trucks, and couldn't believe when I joined the regular Army in 1980 that women there were still expected to wear white summer gloves and could only drive cars or Landrovers. I was one of five girls selected to undertake the same driver training as the men at the Army School of Transport, where debate raged about our postings. A compromise was reached: only one of us would join a field force transport unit and, if successful, the others would follow. That test case was me! I became the first female Royal Australian Corps of Transport (RACT) driver to be posted to a field force unit in the post-WWII era. In addition to being a driver, during my 20 years of service I planned and coordinated vehicles and cargo for all sorts of exercises, operational tasks, humanitarian aid missions and overseas deployments, including those in Somalia, Bougainville and East Timor.

The performance of women of my generation helped pave the way for future generations of service women. Every generation stands on the shoulders of those women that came before, and chips away at it a little bit more. Today, women perform a huge variety of jobs, including commanding ships and operational units.

The 1st Joint Movement Group, which I was a part of when it was first established, was this year awarded a Meritorious Unit Citation on Australia Day for 13 years of sustained and outstanding warlike operational service in the Middle East. Revitalizing and enhancing the War Nurses Memorial in Bundaberg, as part of honouring the Centenary of the First World War, has been my way of paying my respects to our war nurses and to all service women.

I'll leave you with three of the ten commandments issued to the Australian Contingent (IV-UNSOM) in Somalia: be honest in all your dealings; always strive to do your job to the best of your ability and never forget you are representing Australia!

Matthew Louden, of Burnett Heads, said:

I spent 39 years in the Australian Army, serving in tactical, operational and strategic units and organisations. It was a career that required my family to pack up and move across the country on 14 separate occasions. On the upshot, each member of my family is resilient, able to meet new challenges and adapt to change!

My time in the Army was a memorable and enjoyable journey; a worthy life choice. The highlight of my career was being appointed to manage the Australian Defence Force (ADF) ceremonial support activities.

I am immensely proud of my son, Jarad, who is currently serving in the 1st Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (1RAR) in Townsville. Jarad joined the Army in 2005, and has been deployed on operations to East Timor and Afghanistan. His grandfather, Jim, served in the Royal Australian Air Force for 22 years.

Australians searching for the Anzac Spirit need only look in their own backyards. Our family histories speak for themselves.

The final contribution is from Amara Burns, a primary school student at St Joseph's School in Childers. I quote:

I think of Anzac day as a day to stop and remember the people who risked their lives to protect our country and help it become what it is now. Sadly, a lot of people died while protecting our country and that's why on Anzac Day we pay our respects for those who have fought, including those who have died and returned. Anzac Day is a special day to pay our respects and say thank you.

I am proud that so many of my relatives served in WWI and WWII.

I am lucky to have photos of these family members and am lucky to own some of their service medals to remember them.

As dawn broke on 25 April 2015, the Centenary of Anzac, we paused to remember. On Anzac Day and all the year through, we remember the Anzacs. We remember the contribution of our brothers and sisters from New Zealand. We remember the courage, the service and the sacrifices made by Australians in all theatres of war and peacekeeping operations. And we remember Gallipoli, a disastrous campaign but one that displayed our nation's courage for the world to see.

The attendance for the Centenary of Anzac was quite simply incredible, a demonstration of what we hold dear in Australia. When I consider that so many of our veterans, when they went to war, were not much older than some of the children who attended Anzac services, I struggle to adequately express my gratitude to those who have served our country. And, as a father, I am in awe of the parents who waved their sons and daughters goodbye. Our service men and women paid in full for the freedoms we enjoy and the pride we have in our nation. The Centenary of Anzac is a milestone that will only ever happen once. I take this opportunity to pay my respects on behalf of the people of Hinkler. It is the least that we can do. Words quite simply will never be enough. We have not forgotten. Lest we forget.

Mr CLARE (Blaxland) (13:06): A couple of years ago I was at a meeting of the Bankstown Historical Society. I was talking about the upcoming Centenary of Anzac and seeking their advice, and the president, Ken Willis, told me about the old Bankstown War Memorial that used to be at Bankstown Memorial Oval and was now in storage, in a council depot. That set me on an expedition. I went down to the depot and I found it. What stood out were the 31 names on two stone tablets with the heading: Bankstown Heroes 1914-1918. I thought, 'Who were these men? Where did they grow up? Where did they live? What did they do before the war? Why did they enlist? And what happened to them?' As part of this year's Centenary of Anzac, I have tried to answer these questions. To do that my Anzac Centenary Committee commissioned this book, The Thirty One: the Bankstown Anzacs who never came home.

One hundred years ago Bankstown was a small semi-rural town. The railway line had just come through and the first gas street lamps were being installed. The population was about 4,000. And about 350 went off to war. The book reveals that 54, not 31, never came home but the book focuses on the 31 names on those two stone tablets. They were ordinary blokes—carpenters, wood turners, labourers, storemen, stone masons, picture framers, artists and milkmen. The youngest was only 17 when he enlisted; the oldest was 46. And they fought and they died in some of the greatest battles of the war, from Lone Pine to Villers-Bretonneux.

One of the greatest feats of bravery at Villers-Bretoneux was from a Bankstown Boy, Private Fredrick Porter, a 22-year-old milkman from Gow Street. The book tells how he single-handedly attacked a group of 10 German soldiers, killed five and forced the rest to flee. In the fight, he was wounded in the arm and broke his wrist. When the Germans realised he was wounded, they attacked again. That was a bad mistake because despite his injuries, the milkman from Gow Street killed another two of them. For his bravery, Private Porter won a Distinguished Conduct Medal. He survived the Western Front but he died of influenza on the ship back to Australia. He never made it back to Bankstown. He was buried at sea on 10 November 1918—the day before the war ended.

The book is full of stories like this, of courage and sacrifice and of human frailty—sad stories, desperately sad stories. They are stories about widows and mothers who, years after the war was over, were still searching for information on what happened to their husband or their boy. This book is a very precious thing. It tells us what happened to these men, and will help ensure my local community never forgets who they were or what they did. To help ensure that, I am distributing the book to all my local schools and giving a copy to the Australian War Memorial, and, with the permission of the House, I seek leave to table it today.

Leave granted

Mr CLARE: I want to sincerely thank: Tim Carroll from Bankstown Youth Development Service, who led this important project; Ellen Hottleman and Jennifer Madden from the Bankstown Library, who did most of the research; and Adam Courtenay, the progeny of author and writer Bryce Courtenay, who bought this story so beautifully together.

It was not the only thing we did though. After World War 1, Bankstown Council bought a piece of land called Fripps Paddock on the south side of the railway track and renamed it Memorial Oval. It is a memorial to the 31 Bankstown boys who never came home and is where that old memorial with their names on it used to stand. It is now back there, where it belongs. As part of the centenary commemorations, we organised for the memorial to be taken out of storage and installed back at Memorial Oval. And that was where a very special service on Anzac Day took place. More than 1,500 local residents turned up; 33 schools laid wreaths at the base of that old memorial, and so did 30 local community groups. My old friend Jack Bedford, one of the last Rats of Tobruk read the Ode, 100 students from Bankstown Public School sang the National Anthem, and then the big electronic scoreboard was turned into a giant TV and we sat and watched the sunrise over Gallipoli. It was a special moment for Australia and a special moment for my community.

There are a lot of people I need to thank for making this happen: my Centenary of Anzac committee, Dick Payten, Jim Wrigley, Kevin Mahony and Alan Rawlinson; All of my local RSLs, Bankstown, Bass Hill, Chester Hill and Padstow; the team at Bankstown City Council who made this happen, Kerry Sebio, Julie Hayes, Jose Papadimitriou and Matthew Jessop; and Matthew Massetto, Vice-Captain of De La Salle College, our MC on the day—an outstanding young man, the same age as some of the youngest names on that old memorial. That is not all we did either. We funded artist Jane Cavanough to develop a series of bronze sculptures for Bankstown City Gardens, and we funded a commemorative garden at Bass High School, proposed by Principal David Horton and Ingrid Winter from the P&C.

In January, I went to Gallipoli for the first time. It was part of the Mateship Trek. Every two years my colleague from across the aisle Scott Morrison and I bring together young Australians from very different backgrounds to walk in the footsteps of Australian soldiers. We have walked Kokoda track, the Sandakan Death March and the Black Cat Track. This year it was the battlefields of Gallipoli. What made it a little different this year was that we took young Australians from Turkish and Anglo-Celtic backgrounds—Ersoy, Alara, Erol, Simal, Yasmine, Georga, Hayden, Joel and Jackson. One hundred years ago some of their great grandfathers fought against each other. In January they walked together in their footsteps.

I also got the chance to walk in the footsteps of my great grandfather. His name was Jack Price. He was not an Anzac; he was a Royal Welch Fusilier. He was one of the lucky ones—he survived. And decades later, his great grandson got to know him, to love him and to call him 'Pop'. We walked 60 kilometres from Helles to Anzac to Sulva Bay. And we did it with the help of a lot of good and generous people, from our patron, the Governor of New South Wales David Hurley, to our incredible guide, Anzac Memorial historian and director, Brad Manera.

We were also privileged to walk with two distinguished Australian soldiers Major General Jim Molan, and ex-Commando Nick Hill and they walked together with two Turkish soldiers. One hundred years ago they were enemies, today good friends. We also managed to raise more than $30,000 for Soldier On, the organisation that supports Australian service men and women who have been wounded, physically or psychologically in contemporary conflicts.

On the second last day that we were at Gallipoli, we visited Shell Green Cemetery. In that cemetery lies the body of another of the 31 Bankstown boys who never came home. His name was Reginald Foote. He was an artist from Old Kent Road. He died on 17 December 1915, the day before the Anzacs evacuated. He was 20 years old.

War is nothing to be celebrated, but the people who fought and died deserve to be remembered. That is why we do these treks. That is why we have commissioned this book. On Anzac Day, I told the 1,500 people gathered at Bankstown Memorial Oval to think about their mum or to think about their dad, to think about their brother or their sister, to think about their husband or their wife, and then think about never seeing them again. That is what happened to Frederick Porter, the milkman from Gow Street. He never saw his mother, Sarah, or his dad, George, again. And that is what happened to Reginald Foote, the artist from Old Kent Road. He never saw his mum, Ethel, again. It is what happened to all of those 31 men on the memorial and to all of those who fell in World War I and to all those who have fallen since. This is not about war; it is about them—the extraordinary sacrifice they made so long ago. And that is why we do this and why we say we will remember them: lest we ever forget.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Whiteley ): Lest we forget.

Mr WOOD (La Trobe) (13:16): It is with great pleasure that I also get the opportunity to talk on the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. I congratulate the other members for their fine contributions. I had the great pleasure of being involved with a panel which selected so many great projects in the electorate of La Trobe. I thank all those panel members for what they achieved.

I had the great pleasure of being involved with the Emerald RSL president, Peter Maloney. Peter was very instrumental in deciding, with his team at the Emerald RSL, that they wanted to remember the Anzac spirit with something very special. They engaged a local artist. Her name is Ronnie Sexton. Ronnie produced a beautiful statue of the Unknown Soldier, carved in perfect detail in wood. This is something which the Emerald community will remember and see for many, many years to come. We also had Senator Michael Ronaldson, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, come out that day for the official unveiling in Emerald. The Governor-General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, also attended. This will be one of those events which, for many, many years to come, will be recalled and admired by our local community of Emerald.

I also had the great opportunity to work with Bob Richards and company from the Dandenong Ranges RSL to reopen the Ferny Creek memorial. What was so special about this? I grew up in Ferny Creek. At the time of World War I, Puffing Billy had only been in operation, I believe, for 15 years or so. The main trade up in the hills was tourism, and it was also logging. There was a place nearby called One Tree Hill, and we could actually see this on the day of the memorial launch. But now, obviously, it is a different time, where the forests have grown back. In Sherbrooke Forest, where the memorial is located, sadly, over so many years local residents did not even know that it was actually an Anzac memorial. So I congratulate the Dandenong Ranges RSL for the amazing work they did in the restoration to get it back to its former glory. They worked with Parks Victoria to remove the foliage which had been hiding this beautiful stone memorial. It was great to see a relative of the initial stonemason who built this beautiful memorial.

We also had an amazing event. It was called the Bells of Peace. The Bells of Peace was an event put on by the Dandenong Ranges Music Council. The Dandenong Ranges Music Council wanted to remember all those Anzacs who served and the history of our local area. They put this amazing performance on, and I congratulate Bev McAlister and her team at the Dandenong Ranges Music Council. I congratulate her for everything she did for that event, and I have to congratulate the entire team. It showed an amazing musical tribute to and history of the Anzacs. It showed how most of the young soldiers believed it was an incredible journey that they were going to be involved with. Secondly, it showed how they realised that they had to fight for their country. That was something that they were very proud to do.

They talked in this musical about the local football players. In particular, what was most moving was that they spoke about the Lilydale Football Club and how 25 young men went over to fight in the war. They had photos of those football players. I should point out that the Lilydale Football Club actually falls within the electorate of Casey, with their fine member of parliament being Tony Smith. What was most telling about this was that, out of those 25 football players, only five returned. It was incredibly sad. It was a different time without so many people there. When I was at the Emerald RSL, I learned that 32 young men there did not return—again, very, very tragic.

But also during the Bells of Peace they had a performance highlighting that, at that time, Dame Nellie Melba, who had a beautiful place down in Coldstream, was one of the key fundraisers and supporters of armed services fighting overseas. She used to put these performances on in town, raising money in support of our soldiers. One thing which came out of that, which I was not aware of, was she got very annoyed because during all these performances she could constantly hear the tapping of knitting needles. All the women there were knitting socks for soldiers, supporting our soldiers overseas. It is amazing to think of this time, when all of this was actually occurring.

I had another event at the Gembrook Primary School, and I congratulate all the RSL members in Gembrook. What was amazing about this was that the young children at the Gembrook Primary School wanted to present a letter to the local RSL. Amazingly, the letter was written in 1916, had disappeared for 40 years but was found in a pair of socks. Lo and behold, it was actually from the Gembrook Primary School students, writing to an unknown soldier fighting in World War I. Basically it said, 'Dear Unknown Soldier, we have knitted these socks for you, socks for soldiers, wanting to recognise our great support for your contribution to our nation.' It really shows and highlights how important and how big this was to Australians at the time. Right from the start at all the events that I went to, I mentioned the figures of the 60,000 Australians who did not return.

We had another event in Officer. The memorial gates were reopened in a dedication to 10 soldiers who paid the ultimate price. This was a really nice event. The old memorial had to be moved to help some roadworks to be built, and the great thing was that the Officer community, rather than looking at this as a negative, turned it into something amazing. They moved the memorial gates, built beautiful surrounds with gardens and did an incredible job. I must congratulate Rob and Carol Porter for all their hard work in getting involved in this event, and all the Officer community for their dedication.

Finally, like we have heard so many people say in this chamber, Anzac Day was something very special. I started at the Emerald dawn service, dropped into the Gembrook RSL and the Cockatoo RSL, went to the fantastic 11 am service at Berwick and made my way over to the Upwey RSL. I congratulate the members of Upwey RSL for all the fantastic work they have done. Then I went up to the Dandenong Ranges RSL. It was a fantastic day. It is a day of respect and a day of remembering all those who have served this country and in particular the 60,000 soldiers who lost their lives and are buried overseas. We always pay respects to their descendants, who were there out in force on Anzac Day.

Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (13:26): It is a great honour to be able to speak today on this commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. I say that because the response by the Canberra community to Anzac Day and its centenary has been quite extraordinary.

This year's dawn service drew 120,000 people to the War Memorial and Anzac Parade. I was there at the dawn service and it was quite extraordinary. Canberra has a population of 380,000, and the capital region has between 500,000 and 600,000. A large proportion of those who gathered at the dawn service on Anzac Day were Canberrans. I thank and commend Canberrans for remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice, those who were wounded and those who were broken-hearted by the loss of loved ones during the war, and for continuing to remember the sacrifice made by our ADF, who currently serve our nation so well. We remember their continued service and acknowledge that many of those who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are injured in physical ways and in their mental health. We need to be there to support them.

It was an extraordinary turnout by Canberrans on that very cool morning. It was just wonderful to see, as the sun came up, people of all ages and backgrounds. There were children and babies, and parents wanting to bring their little babies along to commemorate the day and to also acknowledge their relatives. There were little children from schools across Canberra, throughout the region and throughout the country. Quite often there were people on their own, as I was—my husband was down the road in different spot—who were there wanting to pay quiet tribute and to acknowledge those who had served who made the ultimate sacrifice and to remember all those involved in the First World War.

The dawn service was followed by a range of services throughout the nation. We had the national ceremony here in Canberra, and once again the turnout for that was quite extraordinary. It was not just among the people who came to watch where there were record numbers. We also had a record turnout in terms of participants. There were people from the local RSLs here in Canberra—the Woden RSL and RSLs right across the city. We had the cadets out from HMAS Harman—Navy, Army and Air Force cadets—who were there marching proudly. We had a range of groups, from peacekeepers to police force members to civilians, who have been involved in Afghanistan. We had Vietnam veterans. We had representation from humanitarian as well as the conflict— (Time expired)

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the honourable member will have leave to continue her remarks at that time.

Dr CHALMERS (Rankin) (13:30): The government likes to pretend that this budget is somehow different from last year's disaster, but the fact is it is all still there: $100,000 degrees, cuts to families, $80 billion in cuts to schools and hospitals. It is all still, in the Treasurer's words, 'on the table'. Even after backflipping last year, the government's GP tax is hidden in the budget as well. After trying to slug patients with a $7 fee, then $5 fee, then a $20 fee, it is now going to charge $8.43 through the back door.

The government will rip $1.3 billion out of general practice, with big consequences for our health system. This is despite experts agreeing that discouraging GP visits will raise overall health costs. Every year 85 per cent of us visit a GP but only 15 per cent of us are admitted to hospital. The average cost of a GP visit is $47 to the government, while a trip to an emergency department for the same condition costs between $396 and $599.

As I told the patients and doctors who attended the opening of the new Doctors on Fifth clinic at Marsden in my community, our community relies on bulk-billing more than any other electorate in Queensland—93.6 per cent of GP visits, or 1.1 million of them. This government's tax through the back door is not only unfair, not just a broken promise, not just a backflip but a terrible idea with damaging consequences for my community.

Ms HENDERSON (Corangamite) (13:31): As part of my fight for jobs in Corangamite, I am advocating very hard for Geelong to become the home of an industry growth centre in advanced manufacturing. We are a great city of innovation and we have so much potential to grow from strength to strength. I am delighted to share the news that our government will hold a roundtable with local manufacturers and key stakeholders in Geelong as part of our rollout of industry growth centres.

The chair of the IGC in advanced manufacturing, Andrew Stevens, will be at Deakin next week, next Wednesday, attending the roundtable at the Centre for Advanced Design in Engineering Training. So that is great news and a great opportunity for Geelong, in Corangamite, to push its credentials and to advocate very hard for this IGC. IGCs are so important in fostering relationships between business and research, making Australia even more competitive in global markets.

Funding of $60 million, comprising grants of up to $1 million, will be available to convert great ideas into profitable commercial projects. There will also be another $63 million for large-scale collaborative projects to build the capability and competitiveness of the sectors. Each and every day I am fighting for jobs, having a go. With 500 employing some 12,000 people in our region, we have a very strong future in advanced manufacturing. That is why we need an industry growth centre in advanced manufacturing in Geelong.

Ms RYAN (Lalor—Opposition Whip) (13:33): I am here representing the community of Lalor and I am here having a go for health. This budget demonstrates most sadly, most disappointingly, that this government is absolutely determined, by fair means or foul, by the hand of Minister Dutton or Minister Ley, to destroy Medicare. This week's budget confirms what we on this side predicted would be the case—that the $1 billion plus being cut from Medicare rebates will mean the destruction of bulk-billing.

It is not just the Labor Party saying this. Professor Owler was quoted in the press yesterday and today. He says:

They are going to mean a lot more out-of-pocket expenses and it's going to put a lot of pressure on people's private health insurance premiums …

And the Public Health Association of Australia's CEO, Michael Moore, has called the budget 'a bloodbath for health'.

The government wants us to be talking about their big spending budget, but their ideological attacks on public health continue. Their GP tax is alive and well. They have changed the minister but they have not changed their mind. In fact, they have gone further, with more cuts in this budget, after backing in last year's cruel cuts to health in the 2014 budget.

Mrs McNAMARA (Dobell) (13:34): The ice epidemic on the Central Coast is having a huge impact on our community. Methamphetamine and ice usage on the Central Coast has increased by 112 per cent over the last two years. What is most frightening is that we know that ice usage has increased dramatically since these figures were released. This drug is hurting families and placing enormous pressure on community and health services. Government and community need to work together to stop this terrible affliction on our society.

To assist the National Ice Taskforce, I have facilitated the Central Coast Ice Summit, to be held on 22 May. Our community is at crisis point with this drug. It is disheartening that during my consultation with constituents I heard time after time the effects caused by this despicable drug. Its usage is wreaking havoc on our community. Families are being torn apart, health professionals are facing threats to their personal safety and lives are being lost.

The support for this event from law enforcement agencies, health professionals, community organisations as well as print and radio media outlets and venue sponsors demonstrates how important this issue is for our region. I would like to thank Mingara, the Central Coast Express Advocate and radio stations Sea FM and 2GO for their support. By working together on a local level, we can develop a coordinated, strategic approach to tackling the devastating consequences of ice usage.

Mr STEPHEN JONES (Throsby) (13:36): Over the last 18 months the people of Australia have grown used to the tactic of this government where they rob Peter to pay Paul. But in this budget we have seen the government robbing both Peter and Paul and probably Mary as well. We have seen the attacks on paid maternity leave. We have seen—

Mr Tudge interjecting—

Mr STEPHEN JONES: Why is it whenever I talk about Peter, Paul and Mary we see Puff the Magic Dragon stand up and want to interject? We have seen cuts to paid maternity leave. We have seen cuts to family payments and over $2 billion worth of cuts to our health budget.

I just heard the member for Dobell talk about the problems of the ice epidemic in her electorate. Well, $20 million on an advertising campaign is fantastic, but I have got to say that, when you are cutting out $500 million from the flexible funds which are paying to put services on the ground to deal with the epidemic, the government has got its priorities wrong.

But, if ever there were a problem with these sneaky backdoor bandits, it is with the $8 GP tax by stealth. This is the situation where, between now and 2018, we are going to see an increase in co-payments. We are going to see, as the Australian Medical Association has told us, a drop off in bulk-billing payments. We are going to see co-payments introduced by stealth. This is the GP tax that the government knows and loves. The Public Health Association has called it a 'bloodbath', and we agree.

Mr NIKOLIC (Bass—Government Whip) (13:37): As a watcher of romantic comedies, I can inform the House that the American movie Jerry Maguire will soon celebrate its 20th birthday. Who can forget Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, being fired by a junior subordinate? Who can forget that famous scene where one of Jerry's clients screams, 'Show me the money'? Well, 20 years on and you would think the Jerry Maguire storyline is repeating itself in this parliament. Tonight the Leader of the Opposition gets to show us the money. Will he support growth, create more local jobs and get the budget back into surplus, or will he revert to the Rudd-Gillard-Milne model of tax and spend? And Australians want to know, if he does not like our savings, what are his savings? How will he compensate for the $17 billion of government revenue measures he is blocking in the Senate? What about the $6.5 billion in savings that Labor themselves initiated but now block? Where will he find the tens of billions to pay for new spending promises like the $18 billion in aid that the member for Sydney has promised? How will he justify his desire to raid the hard-earned superannuation accounts of everyday Australians? When you tally it all up, Labor's spending is an ever-growing black hole of more than $52 billion. So, when the opposition leader stands up tonight to deliver his budget reply, the two key questions on every Australian's lips will be: 'What's your plan, Bill?' and 'Show me the money!'

Ms McGOWAN (Indi) (13:39): Many Indi residents live in areas where internet is consistently unreliable. This is a particular problem for young students. Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to read you a letter from 12-year-old Edward Dwyer, who lives only 10 minutes from his school in central Wangaratta:

Dear Cathy,

I live in Wangandary. Our internet is very slow; we have wireless internet. I need better internet for homework and research. I also need it for entertainment like YouTube. I would also use it around the house on the TV and hand-held devices like iPods. Mum might let me get a console like a PlayStation because it uses internet. All my friends in town have good internet so they can play games together. Could you please tell me when the NBN will be coming to Wangandary. Thank you for all the work you do for our area.

Twelve-year-old Edward is not an isolated example of young people without internet connection in my electorate. Ten-year-old Anika and eight-year-old Mia live just 10 minutes from Wodonga and they consistently tell me that they have to stay in at lunchtime when they go to school in Albury because they have to finish their homework, because their Mathletics internet homework cannot be done at home. The parents of these children are desperately keen to give their kids a good education. I want to say thank you to Edward's parents, Chris Dwyer and Jane Kealey, for choosing to raise your children in regional Australia. Thank you to Edward for writing to ask when the NBN will be coming to non-urban areas. Like you and many rural families, I know it is not good enough. It needs to be better. (Time expired)

Mr O'DOWD (Flynn) (13:41): Today I want to commend the efforts of everyone who helped make the re-enactment of the 1915 troop train possible.    It was a significant project for my electorate and took 18 months to complete and organise. It allowed people to experience the steps taken by young Australians who travelled across western Queensland to enlist in World War I. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Michael Ronaldson, called the troop train re-enactment the pre-eminent event occurring on Australian soil to honour the 100 years of the Anzac spirit, 1915 to 2015. Indeed it was a brilliant and ambitious undertaking. The Anzacs deserve nothing less. We transported 250 passengers, plus many schoolchildren, from Winton to Brisbane, more than 1,500 kilometres. The feedback was very positive. The troop train also had economic benefits for each electorate it passed through, not just Flynn but also Maranoa, Capricornia and Wide Bay. We estimate that we helped provide an economic boost of around $65,000 for each town we stopped in. The journey was both spiritual and enlightening for all, and because of this I have already been approached by people who want to see another journey in four years time for the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice, and again for the 125th anniversary of Anzac. This was a historic event and I was very pleased to be associated with such an event.

Mr GILES (Scullin) (13:42): This is a mean and tricky government, built on a litany of broken promises, none more egregious than the promise to have no cuts to health. It is a mean and tricky government and a disingenuous one, but it has shown remarkable consistency in one respect: its ideological determination to dismantle universal health care, to destroy Medicare. Through two ministers and five iterations of a GP tax, it still has not walked away.

Ms Ryan: Or listened.

Mr GILES: Or listened, indeed, and it should be listening, particularly to the constituents in Scullin. There is no issue more important to the people I represent in this place than universal health care. Nearly 10,000 people have signed a petition to save Medicare, a petition that should be listened to by the parliamentary secretary and his colleagues, not scoffed at. Ninety-three per cent of visits to the GP in the Scullin electorate are bulk-billed, the highest rate in Victoria. I think this is a good thing. It is about quality health care and it is about maintaining living standards. We understand, on this side of the House, that Medicare is the cornerstone of the social wage in Australia. This GP tax by stealth underpins the notion that this is a government that is not only committed to undermining trust in politics and undermining the health standards of Australians today and tomorrow; it is attacking the living standards of the people I represent. They know, however, that I am committed to standing up for Medicare against this government.

Mr PITT (Hinkler) (13:44): I would like to highlight a few measures contained in the budget that are of enormous benefit to the people of my electorate. There are some 8,600 small businesses in my electorate. Small companies that have an annual turnover of less than $2 million will have their tax rate cut from 30 per cent to 28.5 per cent. It is very important we help businesses expand, because ultimately they are the employers, not government. Businesses create jobs, not us.

We will spend an additional $3½ billion over five years on childcare assistance. Families earning around $65,000 or less will receive a subsidy of 85 per cent of their childcare fees. Contrary to what some on the other side—certainly the new state Labor government—would have you believe, Hinkler residents will benefit from the Commonwealth's increase in annual funding for Queensland hospitals by 27 per cent over the next four years. That is on top of the growth of nine per cent in 2014-15. It is the federal government that provides health funding directly to the states. It is up to the state government to decide how and where that money is spent.

We are spending $1.6 billion to list new medicines and vaccines on the PBS. That includes the shingles vaccine for Australians aged between 70 and 79. That is very important for Hinkler seniors, although I would like to see it start sooner than November 2016. It is very, very important for an aged electorate like mine, where we had a bad shingles outbreak last year, so I am very pleased it is on the PBS.

Ms HALL (Shortland—Opposition Whip) (13:45): The one word we did not hear pass the lips of the Treasurer on budget night was Medicare, but that does not mean it is not under attack. We in this place have all learnt that it is not what the Treasurer says but what the Treasurer does that is important. The one thing that he did not do was left the freeze on the Medicare rebate. The freeze is still there. What does that mean to Australians when they go to the doctor? It means that the GP tax are still there. It is alive and well and will cost Australians in the vicinity of $8 when they go to the GP.

Mr Hockey was being mean and tricky, as we know Mr Hockey can be mean and tricky. He is getting the doctors to collect the tax for the government. I have to share with the House that, under this government, bulk-billing will fall. When the Prime Minister was health minister bulk-billing in Shortland electorate was less than 60 per cent. When Labor was in power it was up over 80 per cent. We all know that despite the words of the Prime Minister, he is not the best friend that Medicare ever had. (Time expired)

Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (13:47): National Volunteer Week is a great time to acknowledge all the amazing volunteers we have in our community. This year's theme, Give Happy, Live Happy, is celebrating the fact that those who volunteer are generally happier and healthier than those who do not. I encourage everyone to look into how they can volunteer in our local community, if they are not already doing so. There are so many opportunities, so no matter what your interest is there will be a volunteer group for you. Take for example, the local Meals on Wheels, which makes life easier for those who are housebound and gives them social interaction every day, and the Pyjama Foundation, which helps children learn to read and gives them more opportunities. I am fortunate that I have so many wonderful environment groups in my electorate, which maintain the ecology of our creeks and waterways.

Volunteers contribute $200 billion every year to the Australian economy, and only 10 per cent of not-for profit organisations in Australia have paid staff, which means most are operated by volunteers. Our country could not run without the contribution of volunteers. Volunteers are the glue which binds our local community together. That is why not just this week but every week I want to say, 'Thank you,' to all of the volunteers in Australia, and especially in my electorate of Ryan: We couldn't do without you.

Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle) (13:48): The people of Newcastle, and, indeed, all Australians, could have been forgiven for thinking, when we saw the appointment of a new health minister, that this might mean a new approach to health. Regrettably, that was clearly too much to hope for. While the government wants to pretend that it has finally given up—indeed, buried—versions 1,2,3,4 and 5 of its deeply unpopular GP tax, we know from the budget that it will nonetheless press ahead with the freeze on Medicare rebates in order to save some $13 billion across the next four years. We on this side of the chamber know that when you freeze those rebates the costs are passed on to the patients. That means massively increased out-of-pocket expenses for the people we represent in this parliament.

The Abbott Liberal government has done nothing since being elected other than attack Medicare and universal health. This budget inflicts even more damage. It includes an additional $2 billion of cuts to health and it backs in the $60 billion of cuts to public hospitals that we knew about before. In my region of Newcastle there is a lot of anxiety about the loss of after-hours GP access right now. The government needs to provide secure funding for primary healthcare services like after-hours GP access now. (Time expired)

Ms PRICE (Durack) (13:50): Sustainable agriculture is a central issue in my electorate of Durack. I visited Challa Station in Mount Magnet, not so long ago, to experience firsthand the wild dog problem and its threat to pastoral enterprises. During my visits to Challa I participated in the preparation of dog baits with 40 members of the pastoral community. I was very impressed with their tenacity and community spirit but feel that baiting alone will not contain the dogs sufficiently, as recent history has shown. Wild dogs are destroyed thousands of livestock each year, costing producers millions of dollars and destroying lives. Whereas dingoes were once the culprit and cause of attacks, it is now the cross-breed mongrel.

Over the years, we have seen fewer pastoralists caring for land, owing to their need to work more and more off the land. Wild dogs have been given free rein in some areas due to there being fewer people on stations to eradicate the animal. With fewer doggers, a decline in effective baiting and less rigour by local government in containing domestic dogs, we have seen the rise in wild dogs in the damage and devastation they cause. As the dogs become larger and more vicious, the effect they have, not only on sheep and cattle, is heartbreaking. I am actively seeking the state government's support for the Murchison Region Vermin Cell fence and also the development of a state-wide strategy for the management of wild dogs. I urge the federal government to play its part to save the pastoralist industry in my electorate of Durack.

Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (13:52): I was leafing through the coalition's policy from the last election, which was the one they took to the people. It is called 'Our plan: real solutions for all Australians'. There is a subheading: 'The direction, values and policy priorities of the next coalition government.' If you go to page 39, 'delivering better health services', the subheadings are: improving the performance of public hospitals at a local level, improving mental health services, funding diabetes research, improving access to medicines, improving private health insurance and bringing dental to Medicare.

There is nothing in this document about $60 billion worth of cuts, including $2 billion in this budget, $125 million cut from the Child Dental Benefits Schedule, $1 billion out of the flexible funds, $250 million out of the PBS, $70 billion out of health workforce and $70 million out of allied health program for veterans. There was nothing about that at all and nothing about the GP tax. It was in all five versions, including the latest version. It was not discarded in this budget but simply snuck in under the radar. We know that the president of the AMA has belled the cat and told the truth about this: the GP tax will be there in the community undermining bulk-billing rates. That is a reality. This government is determined to smash Medicare.

Mr RAMSEY (Grey) (13:53): It was my privilege over Easter to attend the hundredth celebration of the discovery of opal at Coober Pedy by Willie Hutchison, a 14-year-old in 1915. What a fabulous community it has become. It is unique. The Opal Festival, which has become an annual event, was staged over Easter. There was a street parade, lots of things for people to do at the oval and a fabulous gem show that is organised by the Coober Pedy Miners Association, which is led by Paul Reynolds.

Coober Pedy is a tourism mecca. We have working mines and we have historical mines for visitors to explore. We have some of the world's best accommodation and certainly the world's best underground accommodation. There are wonderful underground restaurants, showrooms and dugouts. About 70 per cent of the population live subterraneously. Just out of town, there are the wonderful Breakaways. In fact, a number of movies of the shot around the Coober Pedy area. It is interesting: there is a lot of focus on Mad Max at the moment. In Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Coober Pedy is where Tina Turner came out of the spacecraft, which is still in the main street. Of course, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was filmed there.

This is a great place. What I am trying to tell people is that if you have been all over the world and you are jaded, come for a look. As Molly Meldrum would say, 'Do yourself a favour.'

Ms KING (Ballarat) (13:55): The Prime Minister would try to have you believe that the GP tax is dead, buried and cremated. Just like his statement on Work Choices, this is a tax that never seems go away. Buried deep in the health budget papers is the ongoing four-year freeze on indexation. In fact, the Medical Journal of Australia itself just last month belled the cat on this. It said, 'This in fact is a GP tax of $8.43.' This GT tax is already being imposed on patients across the country—we are seeing bulk-billing rates collapse—and is still buried within the budget. $1.3 billion will be transferred directly onto every single patient as they go to access their general practitioner.

Far from being dead, buried and cremated, the GP tax is very much alive and well in this budget. We have now had several versions of this. It has been a price signal, a value signal and a co-payment. It is a GP tax well and truly. It is now $8.43. We have also seen the president of the Australian Medical Association again say:

This is a GP tax by stealth.

Bulk-billing rates are already going down as a result of the policies of this government. These are people who are trying to access the medical services that keep people well and that keep people out of hospital. What counts for a health policy from this government is to try to put a barrier in the way of people accessing a GP. The GP tax is alive under Tony Abbott. (Time expired)

WYATT ROY (Longman) (13:56): I rise to speak about the brutal storms that hit our local community. We are still recovering both physically and emotionally. The ferocity and the density of the downpour created chaos, which ultimately led to tragedy. This event claimed five local lives, including the life of a young five-year-old boy. On behalf of my community, I would like to extend our condolences to the family and friends, who are facing the unthinkable. In the face of such adversity and tragedy, we saw the rallying spirit of our community. I particularly want to thank the swift water rescue guys, the SES, the police, the fireys and the ambos who put their own lives on the line to save others.

Among the stories of courage, we saw spontaneous gestures of community spirit. The Caboolture Historical Village, the Caboolture Sports Club and Julie from Elimbah's Health Concepts all opened their doors to give people food and shelter from the storm. In our darkest of moments, the light of our community spirit shines bright. In the face of such adversity, we see the absolute best of our people. I could never be prouder to represent our amazing community.

Ms CHESTERS (Bendigo) (13:58): In beginning my remarks, I would like to acknowledge that joining us today in the gallery are the students of the Catholic College of Bendigo. It is great to have them here today. What I know from speaking with those students is that their motto is, their school believes and they believe that relationships are built on love and respect. Those are important words and words that this government has forgotten when it comes to health care. Far from being done, the GP tax is back. It is back in a way that the government has tried to hide in its budget papers. They are trying to introduce a GP tax by stealth.

What they have done is continue to freeze the Medicare rebates. That is going to cost billions and billions of dollars to our healthcare system. If this government does not continue to increase the Medicare rebates, it means that patients will have to foot the bill. They will have to pay the tax. It has already been outed today. It has already been exposed that that will cost individual patients upwards of $8 per visit. This is worse than a $5 GP tax; this is worse than a $7 GP tax. We are now up to $8.

It is time that this government went back to school and remembered the lessons of their days in school and the lessons about relationships, respect, believing in young people and respecting our healthcare system and our doctors. If they do not, then the placards will be back, the rallies will be back and the protests will be back about a government that does not understand that you must back Medicare. (Time expired)

Mr RANDALL (Canning) (13:59): I am delighted to rise today to congratulate several retired servicemen who reside in the electorate of Canning. Because I am going to be out of time, can I seek leave to have this speech about these two diggers incorporated into Hansard?

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

Thank you Speaker, I am delighted to rise today to congratulate several retired servicemen who reside in the Canning electorate.

Last week I was most humbled to present a Service to Malaysia Award (Pingat Jasa Malaysia) to Lance Corporal O'Brien (ret) and Private Clark (ret) on behalf of the Malaysian Government and Malaysian Deputy Secretary General.

The Pingat Jasa Malaysia is an award that recognises service by members of the Commonwealth forces during the Malayan Emergency and the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.

The award is in recognition of distinguished chivalry, gallantry, sacrifice and loyalty contributing to the independence of Malaysia.

Speaker, I would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Mr Colin Parker who is a past recipient of the Service to Malaysia Award.

Mr Parker now dedicates a significant portion of his time to supporting veterans in Canning and we most certainly appreciate all that he does to support those who have so selflessly served our great country.

Finally, Speaker, to all servicemen and women both past and present I say this: To you, we owe a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. Your courage, mateship and sacrifice leave us the enduring legacy of a free and peaceful nation.

I also formally acknowledge the contributions of Mr O'Brien, Mr Clark and Mr Parker in ensuring a free and peaceful Malaysia.

The SPEAKER: It being 2 pm, the time for members' statements has concluded. We would normally move to questions without notice, but I think it might suit the House if we now dealt with the condolence motion concerning the Right Honourable John Malcolm Fraser AC, CH.

The SPEAKER (14:00): The question is that the motion that was moved by the Prime Minister and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition be agreed to, namely:

That the house record its deep regret at the death on 20 March 2015 of the Right Honourable John Malcolm Fraser AC CH, former Member for Wannon and Prime Minister, and place on record its appreciation of his long and highly distinguished service to our nation and tender its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

I ask that that all members stand in their place to show their approval of the motion.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

The SPEAKER: I thank the House.

The SPEAKER (15:14): I have received a letter from the honourable member for Gorton proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to offer a plan for jobs in the new economy.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR (Gorton) (15:14): On Tuesday night the Treasurer handed down a budget that the government promised would be about taxes coming down, debt coming down and unemployment falling. Instead we were witness to a budget where taxes are rising, debt is rising and unemployment is rising. Even on the government's own forecast, unemployment will be rising next financial year to 6.5 per cent. This is the highest unemployment rate for 14 years. This is a very, very big problem for the 800,000 Australians who are seeking work. What we see, over the forecast years, is a forecast where unemployment will be higher than was forecast in last year's budget. So the fact is: things are getting worse, not better, when it comes to job opportunities for Australian workers. What we need to see from this government instead is a plan for jobs. What we need to see from the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and other ministers of this government, including the Minister for Employment, is a plan for jobs for those 800,000 Australians. Instead, we have today an unemployment rate of 6.2 per cent. We have 80,000 more Australians on unemployment queues today than we had at the last election. We have a government with a very modest goal, in terms economic growth, of a million jobs in five years, and yet there are more than 80,000 jobs fewer than there should be, given the government's commitment to that goal.

The Prime Minister's goal is certainly not being met; indeed, there are more people unemployed as a result of this government. Why is that the case? When this government was elected it confected a crisis and scared business and consumers. That is why we have an economy that has been flagging. That is why we have employers who are not hiring. That is why we have consumers who are not spending. As a result, we have an economy that is in trouble. A confected crisis by this government caused problems. It dampened consumer confidence, it dampened business confidence, it has led to unemployment increasing and, unfortunately—despite this budget being called a 'jobs and family' budget—even the forecast within the budget shows that unemployment will rise over time. That means, if these forecasts are right, we are going to see tens of thousands more Australians in unemployment queues.

The question the opposition asks is: where is the government's jobs plan? Where are the jobs for the 284,000 people who are looking for work? The unemployment rate for young job seekers is nearly 14 per cent, which is well above twice the national rate of unemployment. We have young job seekers not earning or learning and they are seeking answers from this government. They want to enter the labour market. They want to be productive. They want to have a purpose and they want to have a decent job, and yet there are no jobs for them. And there is nothing in this budget that would suggest there will be job opportunities over the course of the next few years. That is a major problem and something that this government has failed to attend to, and one of the reasons is that this government and these ministers have a callous disregard for Australian workers.

We saw that writ large early in this term when we saw the Treasurer turn up at this dispatch box, in December 2013, and threaten an iconic company like Holden to leave our shores—and they are leaving. We saw it when the government said that Australian shipbuilders will not build ships. We saw it when the Prime Minister tried to do a deal with Japan to stop submarines being built in this nation. We see it when it comes to the failure of this government to invest in skills, to invest in infrastructure, to invest in those things that will create the opportunities for businesses to hire and for workers to have productive lives. These are the reasons that we are seeing unemployment rising. The figures in the government's own budget illustrate that opportunities will not be there for those Australian workers.

Some areas of this nation are at crisis point. In Northern Tasmania, in Northern Queensland, in parts of Melbourne and Sydney and in northern Adelaide, unemployment figures for young people are at 20 per cent There are major challenges for our economy. It is awful to see young people without opportunities for work, and yet there is not enough in this budget; there is not enough effort by this government to attend to this issue. And it is not just those young people who may have left school early. There are university graduates trying to work out where their jobs are for the future. There are apprentices finishing apprenticeships who cannot find work. There are trainees who cannot find work. This is a major challenge that is not being responded to by the government.

Not everything is rising. If you look at the budget figures, you see that we have the lowest rate of wage growth since the ABS started collecting information. Even for those workers who do have a job, there is very little wage growth at all. Indeed, at the very best in the next financial year it will be matching inflation. This is the lowest rate of wage growth we have seen for many a year. So, with the cost of living rising, you are going to see more families under pressure because of those very low rates of wage increases.

We have heard a lot of talk from this government about employment participation. They have suggested that they want to see more people enter the labour market. That was the reason the Prime Minister used to advocate having a paid parental scheme. He used to talk about a paid parental scheme that would ensure that women would enter the labour market. What has happened since then? The Prime Minister used to boast about improving employment participation but the paid parental leave fiasco that we have seen this week is as good as theft. What we have seen by this government in introducing the initiative that will deprive 80,000 mothers of entitlements is an absolute disgrace. First we were going to have a paid parental scheme, then we were going to have a reduced scheme, and now we are going to have no scheme at all—but, even worse than that, we have a policy that will have a perverse effect on the current workplace agreements in place in this country. There are women in this country who are working for private sector companies and who will be deprived of entitlements, and the government has the cheek to call these women fraudsters, rorters and double dippers.

These women are not fraudsters or rorters; these women negotiated those entitlements. They forewent wage increases so that they would get this entitlement, and now we have a government that is going to steal that from those women. Women who have just had a child will have a reduced entitlement, an entitlement that came about through their own discussions and negotiations at workplaces as a result of the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's budget. And that is an injury to those 80,000 women. The insult, of course, was this government having the hide to call these women 'rorters' and 'fraudsters' and 'double dippers'.

This is not double dipping; this is double crossing by the Prime Minister of mothers who are in the workforce. This will not help employment participation. This will not improve opportunities for women in the workplace. This is an outrage that the government should change. The Prime Minister himself should come to this dispatch box and apologise to those women for the insult and the injury he has caused as a result of that item in the budget. But we will not expect the Prime Minister to do that because, as I said, this government has a callous disregard for workers, a callous disregard obviously for working mothers as well.

We want to see this government outline a jobs plan but we have seen none of that in this budget. We want to see the government engage with business. We want to see the government ensure that there is proper investment in skills to ensure that businesses can find the skilled labour they need but we do not see enough of that. They took $1 billion in the first budget out of training and apprenticeships and we do not see any improvements on that front as well, so there are major problems with this budget.

Finally, it is also important to note the way in which a government treats its own workforce. The actual increase over the forward estimates for the Commonwealth would suggest there are going to be more job cuts in the public service or indeed a wage freeze. It is incumbent on Minister Abetz to explain where he is going to cut those public service jobs or whether in fact there is going to be a wage freeze, because the money is not there to ensure that the workers are properly treated or that they keep their jobs. This is a government that has failed on jobs and needs to attend to this major challenge for this nation.

Mr BILLSON (Dunkley—Minister for Small Business) (15:24): If you want to know anything about Labor, you just saw it—an old union hack will not bring the jobs back. All you heard here was whingeing and moaning straight out of Trades Hall, straight out of the ACTU, all protecting the unions, nothing about jobs. You did not hear anything about jobs; all you heard about was unionism. You did not hear anything about the future economy; all you heard was back to the future, slagging off and name-calling, inciting aggro. Why don't you just go onto a picket line? That is where your place should be.

What we have been asked to talk about today are the—you had a pretty fair go, Sunshine.

Mr Brendan O'Connor: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

The SPEAKER: The minister will resume his seat.

Mr Brendan O'Connor: Madam Speaker, I think it is outrageous that he would be attacking—

The SPEAKER: Resume your seat immediately. In fact, leave under 94(a). That is an absolute abuse of the standing orders. You had a very fair run. The minister has the call.

The member for Gorton then left the chamber—

Mr BILLSON: Can't you tell the difference between attacking a hopeless Labor opposition with no plan for the future, only running lines your the unions fed you and the interests of this country? Can't you work that out? As the member for Gorton leaves, what a surprise, he has failed to mention small business once. He may have only been the minister for 11 months. I accept he may have been the only Labor minister in the previous government for 11 months. He was only one of six. I should not be too harsh. I should not think he actually understands that the task of job creation rests in the hands of those that are creating the economic opportunities. It is a pretty simple idea. Jobs do not come by just by coming here and running a picket line speech. It is about supporting the productivity of our economy, getting behind the wealth creators, understanding that for someone to gain a job there has to be an employer with the capacity to employ them and pay for them. And that is why enterprise needs to be at the heart of any credible agenda that talks about the future economy and where the jobs are going to come from. That is what this budget was all about.

I am not surprised those opposite could not quite pick up the fact that we are energising enterprise through this budget, that jobs and small business were at the heart and that supporting participation, families and child care are all about putting in place the environment and infrastructure that is needed to create employment opportunities in this economy. To have people prepared and able to take up those opportunities and to have a go to make them their own is what this budget was about—a challenge we faced after inheriting the mess and their debt and deficit legacy of Labor.

It is a difficult assignment trying to deal with the hard wired expenditure that Labor had in the budgets and in the books of the Commonwealth that would see $123-billion worth of deficits if we left it on the set-and-forget Labor plan. But we could not do that because you do not create jobs for the future by giving our kids the debts that we were not prepared to pay today. That is no way of opening up the economy for the future. So not only does this budget deal with new initiatives designed to support the job creation and the economic prospects of the economy but we have more than offset those outlays by finding savings within the budget.

What else have we done? We have reduced the deficit as a percentage of GDP in our economy by half a per cent each year in the out years. We are back on track for a credible budget recovery that is what the markets are looking for. All of this is happening while we present to the Australian public a jobs and small business plan, a family and child care support strategy. It is all about energising enterprise, encouraging people to be a part of the economy and to be in a position to take up those jobs that, through the work we are doing as a government in partnership with the private sector, will be available in increasing numbers into the future.

Why am I so optimistic about that? In the first year of the Abbott government, the job creation rate by this economy was three times what it was under the last year of Labor. We had three times the rate of job creation. We have got record numbers of business formation. We have got momentum heading in the right direction and all Labor can do is ignore the history as if it never existed. Have a look at Labor's last budgets. Have a look at the debt trajectory that is in there, understated and fraudulent though it was. In there, have a look at the slowing in economic opportunity. Have a look at the rising rates of unemployment. All of those settings were created and put in place under Labor's administration. When the Australian public said enough is enough of that ridiculously dysfunctional government of Labor and put the coalition in office, we had to start with where Labor left things. And let me assure you, they were not where anybody wanted them to be.

In small business, 519,000 jobs—livelihoods, the opportunity for people to get a go in the workforce—provided by small business were lost under Labor, in six years under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. Do you know that the number of small businesses actually employing people declined? It declined. Labor seemed to go out of their way, as an assault on the small business economy, to take on those enterprising men and women who mortgage their houses and in some cases think of nothing other than what they can do to support their enterprise.

We had to tackle that, and we have. Job creation is at a rate that Labor could only dream of. In business formation, again, there are encouraging signs. Building approvals are up. There is confidence in consumers. We had to recover from Labor. I admit that the Australian public was ecstatic when Labor was voted out of office. I accept that. The Australian public was ecstatic, and some of those confidence ratings went through the roof, such was the jubilation of the Australian public when Labor left office.

Yes, it has come off those heights of jubilation, but you hear Labor talking down the economy. They are optimism sponges. They are the perpetrators of negativity. They do not talk about policy. Right throughout the member for Gorton's speech, did you hear one policy idea? Wasn't this Labor's year of big ideas? I have an idea for Labor. Why don't they just get out of the road? Get out of the road. Let us implement the plan that has been articulated in the budgets. Let us get on with repairing the debt and deficit disaster that has been left, not just for governments. Governments have to contend with them; citizens have to pay for them. If we are going to achieve our potential as a great nation and carry forward the promise that every generation before us has had that the next generation will have it better than us, we cannot leave those settings where Labor had them and where Labor wants them: 'What we'll do is steal those opportunities from our kids. We will load up the economy and enterprising people with more debt and lead in the saddlebag than they need to contest and win the economic opportunities of the future.'

What are we doing? We are opening those doors. Those North Asian trade agreements—hundreds of millions of new prospective customers wanting what we do well; a chance to grow our business and our economy and the jobs that flow from it. That is what we are doing. And then we are making sure that our economy is best equipped and fit to win those opportunities, because they are contested; they are not reserved for us. They are not something you can protect by a picket line performance like you saw from the member for Gorton.

Tonight will be interesting. Will Labor have anything positive or constructive to say? Will they dwell on name-calling, on semantics and on the use of words that they seek to distort to create division in the society but no clear pathway for where the economy and this nation are going? That will be the test, because we have already seen some examples of it. Do you know that last week—I think it is the shadow, assisting, part-time, occasionally, about-to-be-retiring—Bernie Ripoll, the member for Oxley, put out a press release? He was having a crack, having a go, not in a positive sense but having a go at our plan to provide tax relief to small business. He was bagging it. He was playing from the big-end-of-town rule book. He was saying, 'Well, if it can't go to everybody, it shouldn't go to anybody.' Well, that is not our view. We do what we can in a responsible and affordable way.

So you had the member for Oxley bagging the idea of a tax cut. You had the current opposition Treasury spokesman, who I must confess was the small business minister—let me check it. One and a half months he lasted in that role. He would not have even got his cards printed in time. He was out there saying, 'No, I actually think this isn't such a bad idea.' And then you had the Leader of the Opposition doing the corridor talk. In fairness to the Leader of the Opposition, I try to ignore a lot of the corridor talk about him from his own colleagues. I do not think it is really helpful. But he had a corridor chat, and he thought he might be onside with some of these small business measures.

But have we got any clarity? Are they actually going to back this measure? Are they going to support our efforts to energise enterprise, to give a reward and incentive to those courageous men and women who create wealth and opportunity not only for themselves but for our community? Are they going to get behind our work to provide the roadshows to explain what the trade agreements mean, how to get a part of them and how to bring wealth and opportunity through those? Are they going to get behind our accelerated depreciation measure? That is not offered, as Labor did, as a sweetener to hide the sourness of yet another new Labor tax. At the same time, they removed a tax incentive for small business provided by the Howard government known as the entrepreneurs tax offset. How is that for a cunning plan? Take off a tax benefit for small business, with 400,000 benefiting from that, and put on a new tax that was actually limiting our capacity for the future. That is no plan. Only the coalition has a plan— (Time expired)

Ms BIRD (Cunningham) (15:34): I have something positive to say to the minister. You have to give him marks for enthusiasm and evangelising in his portfolio. He never, ever lacks enthusiasm, so there is something positive. Sadly, I fear that he is, however, by and large, terribly, terribly misguided. The Prime Minister has a penchant for putting people to live on other planets, and it appears that his Minister for Small Business is living on Planet Delusion. He criticises Labor in government for removing one particular incentive for small business and replacing it with another. Just remind me: what did they do in the last budget?

Mr Husic: Got rid of all the incentives.

Ms BIRD: They got rid of all the incentives Labor had put in place for small business and replaced them with nothing—nothing. Therefore, after 12 months, they have decided they actually have to go back to the issue and try to repair some of the damage that they have done.

I just have a little challenge for members opposite. I extended it to the Assistant Treasurer during our chat at the table. Anybody who is sitting here is welcome to take it up. They criticised the shadow Treasurer and the shadow small business minister for not putting out any positive press releases about government initiatives. Well, I challenge them, over the entirety of the years of the Labor government, to find me one press release—just one; that will do; I will be happy with that—from a shadow minister congratulating on or endorsing a Labor government initiative. If they can do that, I will accept that the minister may not be delusional on these matters, but I doubt very much that they will be able to find a single one.

Let us come back to the reality. Before the election, the commitment of the now Prime Minister—who at that time was the Leader of the Opposition—to the Australian people was that he was going to create a million jobs. What is the reality with unemployment at this point in time?

I am going to use the government's own budget to outline what the current system will be. This government budget as released this week confirms that unemployment will be higher and stay higher as a result of the budget.

Despite all the rhetoric we hear, the budget forecasts unemployment to reach 6.5 per cent—

Mr Husic: Higher than the GFC.

Ms BIRD: higher than the global financial crisis, which those opposite like to pretend never happened—in fact, the highest unemployment rate in 14 years. The budget does not have a plan to address that for the long term. In areas across the nation like mine and the member for Chifley's there is an ongoing deep concern about endemic unemployment, particularly for our young people. In fact, it was a topic of the OECD and a major focus for the OECD. What we need to see happen, and it has been told to the government time and time again—it was told to us in government and we responded with a significant investment in both skills and infrastructure—is investment in knowledge, skills and the tools with which to utilise them to ensure the growth of new jobs and the ability of people to take up the emerging jobs of the future. We have not seen that in this budget.

I want to deal with my own shadow portfolio of vocational education and skills. If you look at what the budget says about this, it confirms that there is a massive 20 per cent cut over the forward estimates in skills funding. That is the reality—a 20 per cent cut. It has totally failed to make any new announcements about investments in skills and training. This abject failure to act comes on the back of last year's budget, where they cut $2 billion out of the portfolio.

Of particular concern in a debate about jobs and in particular when someone claims they are the Prime Minister for 'Tony's tradies', they cut $1 billion out of apprenticeships and traineeships. Not a single dollar of that has gone back, nor is there a single new initiative in this budget for apprentices and trainees. It seems it is all right to love the current generation of tradies, but heaven forbid you actually invest in the next generation of them.

What we actually saw put in place was the abolition of a whole range of programs that were there— (Time expired)

Mrs MARKUS (Macquarie) (15:39): It is with delight that I rise today to speak on the government's plan to see the economy grow and the people of Australia prosper, particularly with the Growing Jobs and Small Business package announced in this year's budget.

I thank the shadow minister for raising this very important issue, giving this side of the House the opportunity to inform both the people of Macquarie and the people of Australia how it is working to ensure that the engine room of the Australian economy, small business, will be positioned to drive growth and create jobs. Focusing on building a strong and prosperous economy encourages business confidence and consequently increases job creation.

In 2013-14, Australians started over 280,000 small businesses. The $5.5 billion Growing Jobs and Small Business package is the largest small business package in Australia's history, building on what has already been achieved. This package will help small business to invest more, grow more and thereby employ more. The Growing Jobs and Small Business package will assist employers to grow and to employ young job seekers, mature workers, parents and long-term unemployed.

I find it incredible that the other side raised this question, having put our economy on the back foot during their six-year tenure. We all know: where there is a good economy, where businesses are supported and have confidence, jobs will follow.

What has this government already achieved? It repealed the carbon tax. It repealed the mining tax. It agreed free trade agreements with China, Korea and Japan. It announced $2.45 billion in annual red tape savings. It established the $484.2 million Entrepreneurs' Infrastructure Program. It created new employment opportunities through a $50 billion commitment to transport infrastructure. It established the new $6.8 billion jobactive employment services package, commencing on 1 July this year. It delivered a comprehensive reform package for the VET sector and introduced Restart, a wage subsidy to help Australians aged over 50 to find employment. It established the Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman. There is more, but time will not allow me to list them all.

Some 11,000 small businesses in Macquarie will benefit from these measures and additional measures, and let me focus on some of the measures in this year's budget. This government will provide more than $330 million in targeted spending on new job initiatives aimed at employers to support the transition of young job seekers to work. There will be wage subsidies to support employers that assist job seekers, with a $1.2 billion national wage subsidy pool and $18 million over four years for job seekers to undertake valuable work experience.

The government is also investing around $6 billion this year to support training that gives apprentices and vocational students the high-quality training they need for modern Australian workplaces. This includes the $664 million Industry Skills Fund, which will support more than 250,000 training places and support services, including skills advice for microbusinesses and small to medium businesses.

Young unemployed people will receive skills links to real jobs and support to be able to engage with work, training or school through the government's two youth training pilots, Training for Employment Scholarships and Youth Employment Pathways, which are being trialled in 32 sites across Australia, including Macquarie.

Under Training for Employment Scholarships, around 7,500 scholarships of up to $7,500 are assisting employers to take on and train unemployed young people.

The Youth Employment Pathways program offers up to $2,000 of assistance to eligible community service organisations to help disengaged 15- to 18-year-olds get back to school, start VET or move into the workforce.

Just after the budget, I received some positive feedback from Mr Ian Palmer, CEO of the Blue Mountains, Hawkesbury and Penrith Schools Industry Partnership. He states, 'Hi Louise, just a quick note to say I was impressed by last night's budget and the small business and jobs measures.' He understands, let me tell you, what young people face and he understands what is required for them to access employment and education. He said, 'Well done. I am also very pleased to see the federal government renew support for young people caught in the transition and service gap between leaving school and joining the world of work.' His email concludes with congratulations on 'a good budget in difficult circumstances'.

Let me conclude by saying this government is committed to ensuring that small businesses are empowered to grow and provide more jobs. We are committed to ensuring that young people have every access to employment and training. (Time expired)

Mr HUSIC (Chifley) (15:44): Forty-eight hours after the budget was delivered here that made a number of references to start-ups, entrepreneurialism, innovation and small business let us go to those in the know and see what they say about this budget. Rui Rodrigues, the Managing Partner of Tank Stream Ventures, said:

Overall, it’s positive that the government has mentioned startups twice in the budget but specific incentives are still lacking or aren’t applicable to the sector, so in the end it’s difficult to look at the glass half full with this budget.

That is what they are saying in relation to what we have seen delivered.

That is not the only criticism that has been levelled at this budget. It pretends it has a focus on small business, jobs and growth, but the reality is otherwise. We are confronted with a very serious challenge. Not only do we have more joblessness now than in the global financial crisis but we are at risk of being loaded up with the weight of that joblessness well into the future. We are under massive pressure to change on two counts. Mining is not delivering the wealth and, importantly, not delivering the jobs that we once experienced. For example, liquefied natural gas facilities that took over 35,000 people to build are now being operated by fewer than 5,000 people. Our GDP growth has taken a one percentage point hit because as construction projects end they require fewer people. This means that joblessness is up and there are fewer jobs around for people to go into. On top of that technology is wiping out manual and entry level jobs. There are fewer jobs that require little or no training. So we have in our own country this challenge with the economy changing and also technology having an impact.

We need to see whether this government is thinking ahead. What is its jobs plan? The problem is there is not much of a jobs plan in place. Other countries get this. For example, the UK is focused on finance or Fintech, New Zealand has coinvestment programs and entrepreneurs visas to generate the type of innovation required there, Singapore has $14 billion put aside for a national framework for innovation and entrepreneurship, and South Korea has a $100 million coinvestment program. They are all changing their economies. In the US they have seen that jobs grow 25 times faster in the tech sector than in any other sector in the country and they are making massive investments. They lead the world in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship. Small businesses and start-ups got big mentions in this budget but there is no plan backing up the words. They are making it up as they go along. We have to work now.

Again, let us look at what the start-up sector is saying. They said:

… in today’s globally connected digital world, our education and training systems need to place a far higher priority on the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths … skills, including Information and Communication Technology … skills.

That is from the Australian Computer Society's Andrew Johnson.

This budget cuts billions of dollars out of skills training and cuts nearly 20 per cent out of vocational education and training, as the member for Cunningham indicated. Where are we getting ready for the jobs of the future? We are not. Each new technology based job creates five additional jobs in other sectors, according to Enrico Moretti, Professor of Economics at the University of California in Berkeley. We are not prepared for it at all so we are under pressure to change. We risk being left behind. We have no plan to generate jobs. Only one job was being thought of in this budget—that is the Prime Minister's job. That was the only target for this budget. The only target for this budget was to get both the Prime Minister and the Treasurer through, but we cannot afford that kind of short-term thinking. We need to be able to think ahead about what is going to generate jobs for the people I represent in my area and the members for Greenway, Wakefield, Gellibrand and Griffith represent. We are all concerned about what is going to happen to jobs in the future but there is absolutely nothing here in terms of investing in schools and education and there is very little thinking in advance about what we need to do to keep our country ahead while others are stealing the march on us.

Mr PITT (Hinkler) (15:50): What a presentation from the member for Chifley. I keep hearing about this plan for jobs. I am not sure where they have been this week. I am fairly certain it is in the budget. It is a big pile of paper. There are a whole heap of books. There is a big plan in there. They must be using it to hold a door open. Go back to your office and have a look. In fact, the member for Gorton has an opportunity to do that given he has been taken out of the House for a short period of time.

Mr Frydenberg: I've got it here.

Mr PITT: There is part of it right there. There is a plan. The issue we have is that the only plan over there is to just say no. Those in the opposition will just say no. If they continue to get in the way it will be very difficult I am sure.

As has been said before by a number of speakers on this side, the powerhouse of the Australian economy is small business and this budget has a whole heap of things in it that are very positive for small business. As someone who was in small business for 15 years I can tell you that there are real opportunities here. These opportunities can be brought forward before the end of this current financial year. There will be an opportunity for people to replace small infrastructure and get a direct write-down. I can tell you that every small business in this country right now is making decisions about what they will do before the end of the financial year. They have done their planning. They have looked at what is coming through the door and they will make decisions about what they can spend between now and 30 June. They have an opportunity to write off 100 per cent of small infrastructure, small items of plant and equipment, up to $20,000. I think it is fantastic.

The member for Gorton talked about there being no investment in skills. I am not sure where he has been because I am positive that there is the Industry Skills Fund. There is $476 million for skills advice and tailored staff training to help businesses expand and compete. Once again, as someone who has come out of the training sector, I can tell you that the days of training churn, the days of putting numbers through training under the JSA system, are finished. We need to provide people with skills with which they can become employed. That is what is important, not just churning through different training organisations on a subsidised basis and coming out the other side. We have 4,000 baristas and in my electorate we do not need that many. We quite simply need people who have the skills to drive forklifts and operate a vehicle. They are very, very simple things.

We have a very difficult economic situation in my electorate. I have some 4000-odd people who are multigenerational welfare dependants. The biggest restriction to them getting a job is having a drivers licence. To get one they need over 100 hours of monitored training, they need a logbook and they need a vehicle. It is very, very difficult when you are in such a situation.

This is supposed to be the year of ideas from those opposite. If that is the best salvo they have to fire in the year of ideas, if this were a game of battleship nothing would be hitting the board. They are scrabbling around in the tin, looking for things to throw, but it is all falling on the floor. There are definitely no hits—none. There is nothing in the jar. It is empty. They have no ideas. It is an empty landscape as far as you can see. In fact, I am sure tonight's speech will be, 'There is nothing to see here.' There is absolutely nothing to see.

We have opportunities right now. The member for Cunningham talked about Tony's tradies. I am very interested in tradespeople because I actually am one. I am one of the few people left in the House who is. Those opposite, many years ago, used to represent working people. They now represent unions. The number of people with trades on that side of the House has deteriorated incredibly. I would like to see more working people on that side of the House, not just people who represent unions. Not everyone is in a union. There is an awful lot of people out there who are not.

The member for Chifley was talking about start-ups. Start-ups are, once again, something I know something about given I have started quite a number. I can tell you that the first three months of trading are incredibly difficult. There are opportunities in this year's budget for start-ups to get 100 per cent write-down on the cost of setting up. It is good value. He talked about LNG facilities and how, amazingly, there were thousands and thousands of people employed in the construction of these facilities. That is not really a surprise. Last time I checked, when you build things, it does take an enormous number of people. It takes labour, equipment and money.

When things go from construction to operation, there are fewer people involved. I cannot think of too many operations where you construct things that end up with as many workers in them as there were to build the thing. That is just the nature of the issue and the nature of the operation. Those facilities are operational. In Gladstone there is in LNG plant which is providing gas from Australia to the world. It is providing returns to the people of Australia and the people of Queensland. It is a very important part of our economy, and we should continue to get on with it. Those opposite needs to wake up to themselves and get out of the way.

Mr ZAPPIA (Makin) (15:55): What is absolutely clear from Tuesday night's budget is that the Treasurer has lost the plot and has lost confidence in himself. His deficit is out of control, ending at $41 billion for this year, going to $35 billion next year. His taxes are rising—24 per cent of GDP this year, going to 25 per cent of GDP in a couple of years time. Unemployment is rising—6.5 per cent this year and 80,000 more people in the dole queues than there were when this government came to office. This government cannot continue to walk away from their responsibility. They have been in government for two years. It is their debt, their deficit and their unemployment figures. What is absolutely clear from Tuesday night's speech from the Treasurer is that he has totally lost confidence in himself. He is throwing up his arms and saying to the Australian people, 'You have a go because I have had a go and I cannot fix the problem.' The economy is going south. The budget has no clear strategy. There is no direction and there is no plan for jobs in this budget at all.

For me, personally, what is extremely concerning is that no state has been treated more shamefully by this government and this Treasurer personally than South Australia. In the government's first budget, about $1 billion was cut from the South Australian budget just in health and education alone. Then we had the government turn their back on manufacturing in this country and in particular the auto industry. First, they would not give the industry a penny to help it survive when governments around the country were supporting their auto industries. Then they dared the industry to leave. As we saw, GMH took up the dare and said, 'If that is what you think about us, if that is how much you value our presence in Australia, we will leave.' And they did. The next morning the announcement was made. Having done that, we saw almost nothing from government, a very paltry amount, put into a fund to try to help those people who were going to lose their jobs and be affected by the loss of the auto industry in this country. In South Australia, up to 13,000 jobs will be lost. We can see the effects already being felt right across the economy.

Then we had the submarine debacle. First, we had a minister—he was the shadow minister at the time—come to South Australia and say, 'The 12 submarines will be built in South Australia.' He made it absolutely clear. Straight after the election, the same person—by then he was the minister—began to undermine the ASC, saying that they were not fit to build a canoe to paddle upstream. This is a government that not only have betrayed South Australians but simply do not understand the impact of their decisions on the South Australian economy.

We then had the Prime Minister, when his own job was on the line, come out with a competitive evaluation process that had never been heard of before in order to appease some of the South Australian backbenchers who had lost confidence in him and in his government. What does 'competitive evaluation' mean? We do not know. The reality is that what we do know is that the government has refused to commit to building the 12 submarines in South Australia and, as a result of that, we are already seeing jobs being lost. One hundred were lost from BAE Systems this week in Melbourne alone. They were all tied up with naval shipbuilding in this country.

But it does not stop there. The truth of the matter is that, when it comes to South Australia, out of the $50 billion, we only got $2 billion. Four per cent of the national infrastructure funds went to South Australia. That is on top of the $130 million cut from special local road funding that was provided to South Australia year in and year out. That is money that would go straight into construction programs and, in turn, create the jobs that we need for the future. But it goes a lot further than that. If you go right through all of the cuts that this government has made—cuts to skills funding, research and training, industry innovation in manufacturing businesses around the country—they are all to industries that are going to create jobs of the future.

Our future lies in innovation and the investment in it; in particular the future of our young people who today face unemployment rates as high as 20 per cent who are looking for work. Their future lies in the jobs that will be created by the very industries that this government from day one has sought to destroy and is destroying. There are only two jobs that this government and this Treasurer are concerned about: the Prime Minister's job—he made that absolutely clear when his own job was on the line—and the Treasurer made it absolutely clear that it is his job that is on the line when he spoke on Tuesday night. (Time expired)

Mrs WICKS (Robertson) (16:00): What an extraordinary debate that we are having in this chamber today, because this budget is actually all about a plan for our economy. It is all about the creation of new jobs, new opportunity and more growth in our economy. I just cannot believe members opposite. I cannot believe the gall, that they would hold an MPI like this today. In fact, I actually think it is just sad. In a week when we should be talking about all the positive aspects of this budget, with so much positive news for families, with so much positive news for small businesses to get ahead and have a go, with so much infrastructure that will be built—infrastructure for the 21st century thanks to this government—all we see member opposite do is complain, attempt to run scare campaigns and outline no positive future.

As much as they may want to run away from their past, as we have certainly heard outlined in the chamber today, their legacy and the legacy they cannot run away from is this: gross debt was projected to rise to $667 billion—

Mr Champion interjecting—

Mrs WICKS: Yes, let's actually remind you about this—$123 million in cumulative deficits; 14,500 jobs lost under their watch and a jobs-destroying carbon tax that of course cost the average family around $550 a year.

In our first term of government, and as this budget outlines, we have already cut Labor's projected debt and deficit in half. Our budget delivers a credible path back to surplus. We have seen a quarter of a million new jobs, 250,000 new jobs, added in just the last 18 months. We have scrapped the jobs-destroying carbon tax. This is a fantastic budget that will actually help to create jobs, growth and opportunity. I want to outline the opportunity that this budget is going to deliver for families and small businesses in my electorate of Robertson.

We all know that national decisions have a local impact. They have an impact on families and they have an impact on small businesses, like those in Erina, Gosford, Woy Woy and Killcare. They have an impact on local economies like the Central Coast region. We all know as well it is not government that creates jobs; it is business that creates jobs. This budget will help business, particularly small business in my electorate and I have around 13,000 small businesses in the Gosford council area. This budget will help those businesses to grow, to thrive, to prosper, to succeed and to create even more jobs and more opportunity for our young people and our commuters on the Central Coast.

Let me outline. We have been talking already in this debate about the great benefits of our $5½ billion growing jobs and small business package, which of course includes a tax cut for small businesses regardless of whether they are incorporated or not, and includes the ability for small businesses to claim an immediate tax deduction for each and every asset purchased up to $20,000.

What we have not spoken about is our $10 million commitment to Somersby industrial park to help upgrade the infrastructure there—part of a $29 million project with Gosford City Council that will help improve economic growth and employment opportunities, and boost productivity. It will make that park business-ready. It will make sure that it is cheaper for businesses to choose to relocate to Somersby. Relocating to the Central Coast means more local job opportunities for our Central Coast residents.

I want to talk as well about something else that this budget confirms: the 600 jobs that we are relocating to Gosford in a purpose-built building, a key announcement that Labor refuses to even guarantee to support but an important project that is on time and on budget. Not only will it deliver 600 new jobs to Gosford; it will help to create hundreds more besides that. What does that mean? That means more local job opportunities for people on the Central Coast.

I want to talk about our commitment to NorthConnex—$405 million in the budget. We did not see that under the former Labor government. We had heard promise after promise after promise. There has been 50 years of planning for this really important road but no delivery. Under this government, not only will it be delivered on time; there will be 8,700 jobs created for the people of New South Wales—more opportunity for people in my electorate.

We will see $7 million into Kibbleplex, which means more people into the heart of Gosford and more opportunities for our small businesses to do even better in Gosford. I could go on and on. I just want to say that the response that we have received on the Central Coast has been overwhelmingly positive from businesses and community leaders because they can see that this budget is a game-changer for the Central Coast.

Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (16:05): Nothing amazes me more than hearing government speakers. They are living in an almost parallel universe. Every Australian remembers the document, Our plan: real solutions for all Australians. Apparently it is:

The direction, values and policy priorities of the next Coalition Government.

They all remember this document and they all remember the appeal to nostalgia that was made by the then opposition, the now government. They remember them offering very easy solutions. Page 15 of the document says the:

… strategy for Australia is to get our finances in order, build a strong growth-powered economy with less debt and make Australia more productive and competitive in the global economy.

And their plan:

… will deliver more jobs, higher real wages and better living standards for all Australians.

Yet, what do we have in this budget? What do we have in the reality of this budget?

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

Mr CHAMPION: I will tell the member for Bradfield what we have: taxes up; debt up; deficits up—$17 billion projected, $41 billion popped out the other side; unemployment up. This is the reality as opposed to alternate parallel fantasy world that those opposite live in. And they expect the rest of Australia to go along with it. The member for Bradfield expects his constituents to buy into this fantasy world that the government seeks to illustrate for us all. I can tell you—and we heard the member for Makin talk about this—about the debacle that has occurred in my state of South Australia in our automotive industry, where GMH was chased out of the country at a time when we had a high dollar and all sorts of pressures on automotive exports. We had them chased out of the country by this Treasurer. What happened to the dollar subsequently? It has gone from $1.06 to 80c—to a point at which Holden would quite happily have been exporting to the United States and other places, particularly to the police-car market in the United States. We would have had exports going there, but instead we have an industry that is closing down.

What did we see on subs? We had a promise to have submarines manufactured in Australia, in South Australia. It was a solemn commitment—broken. There were secret deals behind the nation's back with the Japanese Prime Minister—sort of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink—for the FTA. We know that is the case. We know that press releases were prepared for the purchase of a Japanese submarine, to be made in Japan. The irony—the bitter irony—is that they would have had to double the shipyards in Japan to build our submarines. So instead of building them here, we were going to build them there, and they were going to have to build new shipyards. What a tragedy.

What we have from this government is no plan—no plan at all—for jobs. There is nothing in this budget about jobs at all, just wishful thinking. There is a sort of Keynesian pump priming of the economy at a time when there is a global recovery. It is pretty ironic that they are talking about headwinds. They talk about headwinds now, but refuse to acknowledge the global financial crisis a few years ago. There is an interesting confusion on the opposition side. We have seen no investment in infrastructure—

Mr Fletcher interjecting—

Mr CHAMPION: There are some very funny interjections from the member for Bradfield. I am quite happy to have them on the record.

There is no investment in infrastructure. They are $2 billion under where they should be. There is no investment in skills and innovation. There is $3 billion cut out of science and a 20 per cent cut in school funding. This is the reality of what the government is doing.

What is the reality on jobs? I can tell you what it is in my state. On 21 April: 'Holden to axe 270 jobs at Elizabeth'. Ninety of those workers are going to be forced redundancies—people who will finish up early because of the actions of this government. If there had been a Labor government—

Ms Henderson: Are you going to guarantee those jobs?

Mr CHAMPION: The member for Corangamite asks about our commitments. If there had been a Labor government the auto industry would have been supported and they would not have left our shores, because we would not have been so reckless with their jobs. We would not have been so reckless with our commitments as you have been on cars, on submarines and on jobs.

Mr HOWARTH (Petrie) (16:10): It is great to be in the chamber today to talk about jobs and what the government is doing to support workers, businesses and everyone who lives throughout Australia. I must admit, it is really interesting to sit here and listen to the member for Wakefield and others talk about how debt is up and unemployment is up. This is coming from a man who voted for the job-destroying carbon tax—who wanted to push up everyone's electricity bill and the electricity bill of businesses throughout Australia. This man voted for the mining resources rent tax, and now we have his Labor friends in Queensland shutting down a whole lot of new investment when they came into government. They are shutting down new ship terminals and new residential construction—

Mr Champion: Where?

Mr HOWARTH: Up in Queensland, mate. They are shutting down other mining leases up there as well, around uranium. This is coming from the man who voted to end the live cattle trade in this country and shut it down overnight, along with every job that went with it. This guy has been in parliament for years and he wants to tell us how bad a job we are doing. I have met a lot of people in my job; in my 43 years of life I have met a lot of people, and those opposite are just totally negative. This man gets thrown out of parliament in question time every single day, or just about. The lot of you—you are all negative. If you cannot bring a positive contribution to this place, then get out. It is all of you: the member for Gorton, the member for Cunningham. That is true, member for Wakefield.

Mr Champion: I bet you I come back with a bigger majority!

Mr HOWARTH: And I am sure you will. I am sure you will and I congratulate you if you do.

Mr Champion interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wakefield is going the right way to get a 94(a).

Mr HOWARTH: Let us not get distracted by the opposition, because the people of Petrie and the people of Australia want to hear about the positive contributions of our budget. Of course, jobs are important, and if those members opposite care so much about jobs they will support this budget, because this budget is all about producing jobs. Let us look at what it does for small business. I note the member for Gorton, who was a former small business minister, never even mentioned small business.

Mr Champion: I don't think that's quite true, mate.

Mr HOWARTH: That is true, mate. The instant tax write-off—that is fantastic for jobs. It really is fantastic for jobs. It will help many small businesses in the Petrie electorate. There is also a company tax cut for those businesses with a turnover of less than $2 million. That will also support jobs.

Youth unemployment is particularly high throughout the country, and it is fairly high in the electorate of Petrie. One of the big incentives we have around youth unemployment and getting youth back to work is around work experience. I would be interested to know what members opposite are going to do with the issue around work experience, because often people who have not been employed for six months—

Mr Champion interjecting—

Mr HOWARTH: If you would like to listen up a minute: one of the things that employers say is 'What sort of experience have you got?' It is very difficult to get a job if you have not had some work experience or practical experience in the real world. One of the measures in this budget enables those people who are on welfare to continue to be supported and be able to get up to four weeks training in a real business—to understand customer service and productivity in the workplace. Those businesses that take on those men and women for work experience will spend a lot of time, obviously, training them, and it will be of benefit to the unemployed. They will be able to say, 'Look, I have gone and done some work experience at this place and this place,' when they go for their next interview. That is looked upon favourably.

In the budget there is a great package—a $5.5 billion package for small business that will help jobs growth in this country. There are also incentives for youth unemployment and for getting people back to work. There are also incentives for those young people who are particularly disengaged, or who may have left school early, to go back and do some further study—to finish year 12 or perhaps do a certificate III. There are big incentives for their workplace providers to get them trained as well.

Finally, I would just say that, when it comes to jobs, the Liberal-National party have a strong record. We believe in supporting small business. We believe in lower taxes. We believe in reward for effort. This is important. What stands in the way of that is the Labor Party. They want to come back into office and to run this country. But what do they plan to do? They plan to tax people with their super. They plan to be in a coalition with the Greens, who want to destroy what is left of the mining industry in this country. They are all members and the party of unions, and they want to make sure that casual workers have sick pay and holiday pay when they already have a 20 per cent loading.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ): Order! The time allocated for this debate has expired. The discussion has concluded.

Ms BRODTMANN (Canberra) (16:21): This afternoon, when I left off this speech, I was thanking and commending the Canberra population for their incredible turnout on Anzac Day. As I mentioned at that stage, 120,000 people from around the country, but primarily from Canberra and the capital region, came to attend the dawn service. As I said at that time, the population of Canberra is 380,000 and the region is between 500,000 and 600,000. So that was a significant proportion of the population. There were people of all ages. It was just extraordinary to see so many people at that dawn service watching the sun come up, acknowledging and remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice, remembering relatives who served and remembering, acknowledging and thanking those who are currently serving. I thank and commend those Canberrans who turned out on that day in such record numbers. It was quite extraordinary. As I said at that time, record numbers also attended the national ceremony, and record participants from all age groups from cadets right through to vets. It was a wonderful ceremony.

I am incredibly proud of the way so many Canberrans commemorated Anzac Day here. The Australian Garden History Society is erecting a monument in Weston Park to the young men of early Canberra who served in the First World War. Their service is personified by Private Malcolm McIntosh Southwell, who was a forester based at what is now the Yarralumla Nursery and who was killed in action near Flers in France on 5 November 1916. At Fetherston Gardens in Weston volunteers constructed a memorial garden using plants of significance such as the Gallipoli Rose, poppies, cornflowers and a lone pine.

In Chisholm, the existing memorial on Simpsons Hill is being lovingly upgraded by the local community to become the centre of local commemorations. A new flagpole, garden beds and memorial plaques designed by local schoolchildren have brought the memorial to life. These are just some of the many local commemorations that ensured that Anzac Day continues to have meaning and relevance to our Canberra community for the next hundred years.

As you would be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott—although I do not know whether you partook of these activities—thanks to the fantastic work that has been done by Dr Brendan Nelson, the Director of the Australian War Memorial, and by the Archives and so many other national institutions here in our nation's great capital, many Australians have been using the commemoration of the Anzac Centenary to connect with relatives who served during those four years. It has been extraordinary to see the work that has been done by the National Archives as well as by many other national institutions, where you can type in your relative's name and trace their history. You can sometimes see letters; you can see the enlistment papers; in the case of the person I am about to talk about, you can see the dreadful notification of death. Through that, too, you get a sense of these individuals and the fact that they were individuals who had dreams and hopes and loves and passions, and who often left young wives and babies behind.

In our case, my husband, Chris Uhlmann, and I spent quite a lot of time researching Sergeant Christopher Ernest Uhlmann, who was killed in action in Belgium on 21 July 1917. On that day, 'this splendid stamp of a man' was wounded by a shell in the trenches near Zillebeke Lake in Belgium. The brigade doctor, Captain Aspinall, Bomber Barrs and Private Salisbury went to his assistance, but another shell fell almost in the same spot and killed the four. Christopher Ernest Uhlmann was just 26 and he was married to Florence May Uhlmann.

After attending the dawn service, the mass at Saint Christopher's and the national Anzac Day ceremony, Chris and I honoured 'Ernie', as he was called, by placing a poppy against his name on panel 11 at the War Memorial. We joined with so many thousands of Australians not just at the War Memorial but also at memorials and commemorative shrines in each town right across the country, in paying tribute to the memories and legacy of lost loved ones.

I want to take this opportunity of again thanking Dr Brendan Nelson, because after Chris and I placed that poppy on Ernie's plaque at the War Memorial, the following night we also went at 9.17 pm, when his name was lit up on the War Memorial. Over the next four years his name will be lit up three times. I encourage all Australians to, first off, get a sense of history of those who lost their lives, the relatives who lost their lives or who were wounded during the First World War, but also to take the time to find out when they will be memorialised at the War Memorial, with their name lit up, so that all across the capital region and here in the capital we can remember them. Lest we forget.

Mr HUTCHINSON (Lyons) (16:27): What an amazing event Anzac Day was for so many people and so many communities. The member for Canberra's contribution is an illustration of events that took place all around our country to remember, to reflect and not to celebrate but commemorate those people that gave so much for our country and the country that we all love so very much.

It is a privilege for me to contribute to this debate. I imagine that most members of parliament will take this opportunity. The collation of all these recollections will form part of a wonderful memorial at the national War Memorial, if nothing else from a historical point of view to try to capture how, as a nation in 2015, we commemorated the centenary of Anzac.

I attended three services on Anzac Day. I could have attended many more. There were 36 towns around my electorate that held services. In total we were able to ascertain 57 services around the electorate of Lyons, from small communities to some of the larger towns. I have no doubt that that there were also some private services around the electorate. There has been a private service held on top of a hill at the property of Patterdale near the town of Deddington in the northern Midlands to remember some brothers who were killed in the First World War, and I understand they held that service again this year.

The first service I attended was the dawn service at Beaconsfield, coordinated by Mr Colin Smee, the president of the RSL at Beaconsfield. At 9 o'clock I attended the service at Bishopsburn in the northern Midlands. That was coordinated by Mr Gordon McGee, and I had an opportunity to address the very large crowd that was at that 9 o'clock service. Large crowds were the case at every service as I understand it, around Tasmania and I believe around the country as well. There was also a fine contribution made by Gordon McGee's grandson, Bradley.

Perhaps the highlight for me was the opportunity that I was given in being invited to speak at the 11 o'clock service at Evandale. It was a wonderful occasion in a beautiful setting. There was a very large crowd there. The school band from the Launceston College performed and they had a choir. It really was a very wonderful commemoratives service, and a real privilege for me to be able to speak to the gathering there.

As well as that, in conjunction with the Anzac Day service we had the Centenary of Anzac opening of a mural wall that was alongside the park where the cenotaph stands. It will be a lasting reminder for the people of Evandale of the contribution that was made by so many in World War I. My congratulations go to the Evandale History Society for that particular Centenary of Anzac project.

Similarly, at Avoca at 1 o'clock—although I missed the service at 11 o'clock service, naturally enough. I thank Mary Knowles very much; she maintained a small gathering there to open the Centenary of Anzac commemoration that they had organised at Avoca, which was to install commemoratives plaques at the museum to honour the Anzacs who enlisted from Avoca. It really was a very nice recognition.

Indeed, there are a number that I would like to mention as part of the Centenary of Anzac. I will not go into detail, but it has been truly a highlight for me over the last 12 months to have been part of seeing these communities deliver these wonderful commemorations as part of the Centenary of Anzac. I think of the Sheffield RSL and Citizens Club. Sheffield, as people who have been to Sheffield know, is the town of murals. They now have a wonderful recognition in the form of a mural in that town.

There was a very small project: the Frankford Soldiers Memorial Hall committee has installed honour boards at the Frankford hall—long overdue. A more significant project was at St Helens, where the St Helens-St Marys branch of the RSL has created a wall of remembrance to honour all of the Tasmanian war dead. It is the only place, as I understand it, in the state where there is a list of every person who served in World War I. I am very proud to say that there was an uncle of my grandfather's on that list as well.

The Exeter RSL Sub-Branch had some honour boards. I was very pleased to have the Prime Minister open those during his time in Tasmania with the Pollie Pedal. The Levendale and Woodsdale History Rooms now have a memorial garden made from local rocks that were collected to remember the men that served in both World War I and World War II. The    Liffey Old School Hall is no longer a school—they received only $1,000 but it was a significant contribution to restore the commemorative tree avenue at the Liffey Old School Hall. Those people who left that community to serve in the First World War will now be remembered.

I mentioned the Evandale History Society. The RSL sub-branch at Westbury received a grant to improve access and to establish a heritage remembrance garden. The Kentish Council had a project at Wilmot, where they installed memorial plaques. The Northern Midlands RSL Sub-Branch at Longford received a grant for their Anzac Day 2015 commemorations. I was unable to attend the service, but this was something of truly epic proportions from what I can understand. They do a tremendous job.

Recently, I attended the Eaglehawk Neck Community Hall, where they have used timber from the memorial avenue trees at the Port Arthur historic site. Some of those trees had fallen into disrepair and had to be removed for safety reasons. The timber from the macrocarpa has been sawn and has been made into picnic benches, all of which have a memorial plaque on them, at Eaglehawk Neck and at other parts on the Tasman Peninsula. If anyone is passing that part of the world, it is perhaps the most stunning place where you could have a memorial—overlooking the bay at Eaglehawk Neck. It really is very special.

The Deloraine RSL Sub-Branch Anzac Centenary 2015 day of commemoration activities—'A Living Memorial'—was recognised. And there was the Brighton Council. Of course, Brighton has a very significant history as far as Tasmania and World War I are concerned. It was where my grandfather served. Like so many, he enlisted—Albert Russell Cordell—but because of his eyesight he was considered unable to go to Gallipoli, where his brothers did. He lost an uncle in World War I as well. But he served his time as a trainer at the Brighton Army Camp, as it was.

The Southern Midlands Council had truly wonderful commemorations at Oatlands, Campania and Kempton schools, which I attended, for those communities in the southern Midlands about those who gave their lives in World War I. The Bicheno RSL Sub-Branch has established a new Anzac memorial. Lastly, Clarence Point on the West Tamar will receive an amount of money to support their project, which is, again, to install honour boards and a story board as part of an avenue of honour.

As I say, it has been a real highlight for me and I have no doubt for many other members in this place to have been able to support the local communities as we remembered and as we commemorated 100 years since World War I. For me it has been an absolute privilege and a real highlight of my time as the member for Lyons.

Mr HAYES (Fowler—Chief Opposition Whip) (16:38): I join with the other members of the House in supporting this motion about a very significant time, a very poignant time in our history, as we come together to acknowledge what occurred 100 years ago and to have some regard of how the reflection of that has played into who we are today and shaped our view as to where we go for the future.

Like all members of this place, I joined with hundreds of thousands of people across Australian in attending various Anzac Day commemorations to honour those who have served this country. I attended commemoration functions at the Cabra-Vale Diggers Club, the Canley Heights RSL, the Mounties club in Mount Pritchard and the Triglav club. On each of these occasions, many of these people—who, in my community, have come from all over the world, it being the most multicultural community in the country—came together to look at what occurred, not to celebrate war but to commemorate the efforts that were made on our behalf to achieve peace.

You know the scene well. We saw a sea of wreaths that were laid as Australia paused to remember those who served our country and to honour those who did make the ultimate sacrifice in the protection of our nation. Their extraordinary efforts, their courage and their endurance have been displayed by our service men and women throughout the history of this country. But this particular Anzac Day we focused on the centenary of the landing on Gallipoli. Much flows from that in terms of the great Australian story that we often refer to as the Anzac spirit.

Although 100 years have passed, the events of the First World War and particularly the efforts of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps—the Anzacs—have helped forge our identity and have certainly helped to define us in respect of our national character. In the spirit of the Anzac and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of landing at Gallipoli, the Commonwealth government chose to make grants available for communities to help them not only to honour but also to reflect on these events. In my community they decided they did not need another monument and they did not need a commemorative plaque. What they wanted was to do something in relation to young people. We chose to use the entirety of the Commonwealth grant to engage with both primary and secondary schools across my electorate. They came together to work for over 12 months on an exhibition—artworks, literature, film and artistic performances—to depict their unique understanding of this important chapter in Australia's history. This project was initiated in 2013 by empowering my local Anzac Centenary committee, comprising representatives of local clubs, schools and ex-servicemen's associations. They worked tirelessly over that 18-month period to plan and coordinate this project with the schools community, with teachers and students alike, and also engaged pretty fully with local members of our community.

This project was an opportunity for young Australians to learn more about the significance of this time in our history and to appreciate the freedom that we enjoy today, that being the legacy of those that have sacrificed much on our behalf. Thirty schools in my electorate participated, with more than 20,000 students coming together to participate in this project to design the creative works that built the knowledge and understanding of their contribution to those who fought for peace.

The poignant theme of this centenary program adopted in my electorate was 'not taking peace for granted' and, in doing so, honouring our Anzac tradition. The schools ran their own competitions in the areas of visual arts, performing arts, print and multimedia, and the winning works were showcased last month at Cabra-Vale Diggers Club. There was a very big reception with a couple of thousand people. The work was extraordinary. It depicted the visions not simply of war but also of the achievements that occurred as a consequence of Australia being prepared to stand up and fight for peace. It was very interesting seeing this reflected through the eyes of young people—young people from very multicultural communities. One thing that flowed from it was that they all saw themselves as Australian and they all saw themselves as imbued with the Anzac spirit.

I would like to congratulate all those who were involved in this project, as it has allowed many in my local community to imagine the events as they unfolded in Gallipoli a century ago. The young people worked tirelessly to bring this Anzac Centenary project together, but it would not have occurred without the extraordinary effort of the Anzac Centenary committee. I will take a moment to acknowledge the members of the committee. Beth Goodwin, who is the Principal of Cabramatta High School, played an integral role in coordinating the project, as did Michael Foulkes and Megan Orahem from Cabra-Vale Diggers Club. Others include George Taylor, Jim Thompson and John Dillon, who are all board members of the Cabra-Vale Diggers Club; Barry Brooks from the Fairfield RSL sub-branch; John Baron from the City of Liverpool RSL; Reg Bonney from the National Servicemen's Association; Taffy Pritchard from Canley Heights RSL; Bill Lottey from St Johns Park Bowling Club; and Geoff Lewsam, chair of the committee and also a director of the St Johns Park Bowling Club. They all gave very freely of their time over 18 months to plan, coordinate and deliver this project.

The successful coordination and planning of the project would also not have occurred without the most diligent work of a young staff member of mine, Renata Cekic, who has dedicated an enormous amount of time and effort to the committee. Renata is a young woman who was a refugee out of the Bosnian conflict. She came to this country, completed her education here and now is doing extraordinary work in our local community.

I also thank the local students in my electorate who, through their artistic endeavours, also played a vital role in making sure the Anzac Centenary was honoured in a most fitting way. I thank all of them for their contributions.

History teaches us great lessons, not just about the past but also about ourselves and our place in the world. It is important that we ensure the Anzac legacy continues to be handed down through the generations in order to preserve the Anzac tradition and to allow us to appreciate how it has influenced modern Australia.

The Anzac Centenary project in my electorate has definitely ignited a passion in many to learn more, and it has engendered a renewed respect for those to whom we owe so much.