Address, Last Post Ceremony
1 July 2019
PRIME MINISTER: I extend a warm welcome to everyone who has joined us here this evening. In particular, can I acknowledge the traditional owners, the Ngunnawal people, their elders past, present and emerging.
Can I also acknowledge any servicemen and women who are here with us today, indeed any veterans, and simply say on behalf of a grateful nation - thank you for your service.
In this place, our national War Memorial, the 102,000 men and women who have given their lives in the service of our country, call us to live and believe in the future of our nation.
Our inheritance is the result of their sacrifice, and our freedom is the result of their selflessness.
At this Last Post today, Members and Senators from the new Parliament, together with the public, gather to remember.
In this hallowed place there is no Liberal, National, Labor, Green or party affiliation.
The only word that matters is one that unites us all: Australian.
The only cause that we share today is Australia.
We gather and we draw strength from the men and women whose names adorn the cloisters above.
We are a country of memory, and it is right that every day this memorial reminds us of the stories of those who have gone before us.
Today we’ll hear the story of Private Lloyd Sylvester Sibraa of the 1st Independent Company.
One of over a thousand Australians that would perish aboard the Japanese prison ship Montevideo Maru.
Today marks 77 years to the day since this worst maritime loss in our nation’s history.
A thousand Australians lost, among the 40,000 who would give their lives during the Second World War.
Thousands of Australian prisoners of war were held on ships like the Montevideo Maru.
The ‘hell-ships’ as they were known.
Sickness and disease aboard these vessels were rife.
People locked in holds with little food, water or sanitation.
A thousand prisoners could be crammed into spaces meant for mere hundreds.
All the while at constant risk of being attacked by submarines – for these vessels looked no different than any other Japanese commercial vessel.
Eighteen hundred Australians would perish aboard these ‘hell-ships’.
Yet these names fell out of memory.
The Montevideo Maru.
The Harugiku Maru.
The Rakuyo Maru.
And the Tamahoko Maru. A ‘hell-ship’ that was sunk and whose survivors were transported to Nagasaki.
Last week marked 75 years since the Tamohoko Maru was sunk – with 190 Australian Prisoners of War lost.
None of those Australians lost on the hell-ships had burial places – and so this Memorial is where they will be forever remembered.
This is where families have honoured the memory of their own: touching the wall, kissing it, or leaving a poppy.
And we remember those who remained and who were forever changed.
Behind every name that surrounds us is a family, an Australian family, proud of their loved one’s service, but never quite the same.
There were mothers like Mary Keid.
When collectors came to the door and ask for donations to help build a local war memorial, she replied ‘Sorry, not me. I already gave four sons’.
She would raise her grandson Les.
Les died aboard Montevideo Maru.
And widows like Katherine Russell. Her seven sons signed up in the Second World War.
Two of them, Andrew and Charles, were on the Tamahoko Maru.
Charles drowned when it sunk.
Andrew was rescued after 11 hours in the water and delivered to a PoW camp in Nagasaki, where he died from its cruelties months later.
Their younger sister Dorothy would keep their photos by her bedside till the end of her days.
We also remember Mark and Jesse Turner who lost three sons Sid, Dudley and Daryl on the Montevideo Maru.
Sid and Dudley Turner were especially protective of their younger brother Daryl.
He was just 17.
They enlisted together and they were all selected for the 1st Independent Company.
They kept their promise, to stay together and watch over young Daryl.
Until they all perished together.
Their father Mark Turner withdrew from society.
And their mother Jesse would wear her government-issued silver badge with three stars – one for every son killed – until the day she passed away.
These are the casualties of war we don’t see.
These stories are not just relics of the past.
They live with us, as they should, today.
As long as there is Australia – and that will be forever – our people will never forget the sacrifice of those who served in our name to establish it.
And as long as we are a free nation, the men and women of our Parliament will come here to draw strength, as we do this evening, from those who served.
Lest we forget.
