Page 3025 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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hazards because of the proposed increase in enrolments in these schools. What are the fire safety regulations to do with this? We already know that the children are going to be put at some risk from a safety perspective anyway, unless very large sums of money are spent on road closures.
Mr Humphries: Rubbish. You are alarming people unnecessarily.
MR MOORE: Mr Humphries has no children and he clearly lacks the empathy, he clearly lacks the understanding and he clearly has none of the feelings that parents have who are concerned about the risks to their children and about their extra expenses. Mr Humphries, I just present this as another possible factor that you have probably not taken into account along with the rest of them.
Vietnam War
MR JENSEN (5.23): Mr Speaker, I rise this evening as it is my last opportunity to comment on a matter that took place some years ago, in 1966, in a far-off land. On 18 August 1966 the battle of Long Tan was fought. That battle was for Australians the most significant battle of the Vietnam war. Because of its specific focus, Vietnam veterans of all Services have for some years regarded 18 August as one day of remembrance special to all Vietnam veterans. Another day, of course, is the day that the veterans gathered in Sydney some five years ago when they were finally accepted by the population of Australia.
Mr Speaker, no doubt this fact influenced our Government in its decision to accord this day official recognition. I want to comment briefly on the battle of this day. The battle saw some 106 Australian soldiers, many of them national servicemen, of the Delta Company of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment pitched against some 2,500 seasoned enemy troops. It went for three hours in the midst of a monsoonal downpour which protected the enemy from attack from the air, but not from a very accurate artillery barrage from the Australian and New Zealand artillery batteries at Nui Dat. Seventeen Australians died in the battle and one later died of wounds. Enemy casualties were reported as being some 245. The battle was described by General William Westmoreland as one of the most spectacular in Vietnam to date, and the company subsequently became only the second Australian Army unit to be awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation. Mr Speaker, I will be honoured to represent the Government on Saturday at a ceremony in relation to this event.
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