Page 1666 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 May 2013
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Navy, Army and Air Force. They work for the benefit of all Australians, and there are many families who support them and do so willingly.
Canberra is the home of thousands of defence families and Defence Force personnel quietly going about their lives, raising children and running homes, going to work and building a community around them wherever they go. One thing you can say about the serving members who are part of our community, and their immediate families—the wives, husband, partners and children—is that they are people who make things happen.
One thing that defence life and the deployment of a parent from a household teaches you is that things around the home and around the community do not do themselves. We have a responsibility in this world to leave it better than we found it. At the heart of many community organisations is a defence wife or a serving member of the military.
When I reflect on Anzac Day, I reflect on the heavy lifting done by these families, not just in service to the nation but here in the ACT as well. I want to extend thanks from the benches of this Assembly to serving members and recent veterans who marched this Anzac Day. I know many members who do not want to be applauded for what they do. Many do not want to show off medals that have been awarded for confronting and difficult work. But I was very grateful to see an increased number of young veterans marching this year. I was proud of them, and they gave others the opportunity to be proud of them too.
Younger people are very keen to thank veterans for their service. It is a welcome development. Reasons for conflict aside, younger people are able to acknowledge that the sacrifice and time away from family in the service of the nation is a tough job and that our nation would not be what it is today without it. So I add my voice to the presence of the thousands on Anzac Day and say thank you.
We honour the fallen. We honour those living. We honour the contribution of the families who stand by our serving members, who stand behind them. We hope and aspire for the children who have lost parents that they will be carried by those who come to honour their parents on Anzac Day. It is a brutal reality of a lifestyle we live and the principles which we defend that there are no armies without people and there are wives, husbands, partners and children who make great sacrifices too.
As a defence wife, I can say that many families support defence members proudly in the work that they do, and willingly. But the simple truth, in the words of Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, is that freedom is not free. To all the defence families of the ACT today, with members of the family household away on active service or in support roles, I say thank you for all that you do every day. Thank you for the small things and the large. I know it can be tough to keep it all together, but you are some of the best people we have, and we appreciate your service too.
There were many ACT-based organisations who assisted in making the Anzac Day parade come together. I also extend thanks to them. On Anzac Day, we pause to remember that freedom is not free. We pause to say thank you and we pause to ensure that we never forget.
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