Page 1254 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 7 May 2014
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Aside from all these obvious social roles, it is also a place for soccer fans, the philosophers, the unionists, the grammar nuts and the ABBA tragics, just to name a few, to explore their interests with other Canberrans. It is the connection this creates and the potential for real voices over radio waves to alleviate loneliness and isolation that cannot be overstated.
Talking last night to the graduates of the Spanish language radio training program, there was pride and excitement about being the voices that would keep their language alive here in Canberra and about the potential that shared language has to create links between a broader diversity of cultural groups here in Canberra.
I urge the federal government to ignore the recommendations from the Commission of Audit and to continue to support these people and the many thousands of groups like them across the country. I also invite members of the Assembly to support community radio by joining the commit to community radio campaign at committocommunityradio.org.au.
Anzac Day
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (6.41): I rise tonight to speak about my experiences surrounding Anzac Day this year. Each year Anzac Day is a mixture of reflection and celebration for the fallen, current and retired service people of Australia and New Zealand. It provides a collective opportunity for Australians to examine the history of wars in which our nation has partaken or been drawn into. It provides an opportunity to look at how we can learn from the conflicts which inhabitants of this land have been involved in since 1788, and even before.
I attended three events in relation to this annual commemoration. The first event did not occur on the 25th; it was on 2 April. I was honoured to attend the annual aged-care Anzac wreath-laying ceremony on behalf of the Chief Minister in the western courtyard of the War Memorial. This event is organised by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in conjunction with the Australian War Memorial each year and provides an opportunity for people who might otherwise be unable to attend regular Anzac commemorations to do so with help and support to get them to and from the event.
It is obviously an important opportunity for many aged-care residents who may have been involved in war themselves, had spouses, family members or friends who were involved in war or who simply may want to pay respect to victims of war. I wish to commend all those who attended and made this event possible for these aged-care residents.
I feel that this year is particularly important in the commemoration of war as 28Â July will be the 100th anniversary of the commencement of World War I, one of the bloodiest conflicts in which Australia has been involved. We lost over 60,000 service people, and it was to be the war that ended all wars at the time. No-one could consider the possibility of anyone being willing to begin war after what happened on the battlefields of Europe and north Africa. But, alas, we know that the power of humanity to begin war is more often than not stronger than its capacity to prevent it.
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