On this Anzac Day, allow me to reprise a theme. For we Australians really are a weird mob, and I only ever really got my head around just how weird after doing 10 or so books on our wartime experience through the ages.
The standout thing for me was how in the Second World War many of the same Australian troops who were the first to stop the previously unstoppable German Army in the desert sands at Tobruk and El Alamein, then went to New Guinea where they were the first to stop the Japanese Army at Milne Bay and on the Kokoda Track. (Let me hear you say “RAH!“)
Australian troops in Tobruk 1941.
By any measure, the feat was staggering.
And yet come our day of military remembrance, do we say “Our troops were the first to stop the previously unstoppable Germans and Japanese!” Nup. Those feats get mentioned in dispatches at best. Instead we say, endlessly, “Can we tell you again how, after invading their sovereign land, we lost to the Turks?”
I did a book on Gallipoli too, and have deep respect for what our blokes accomplished there. But it was as nothing compared with what they went on to do at the Western Front where, most particularly from the March 21, 1918 on – when the whole war lay in the balance – they fought a dozen key battles, for a dozen key victories and never gave an inch of ground.
Beyond everything else, Gallipoli served as an example of how not to do things.
Australian troops at Gallipoli. Credit:Phillip Schuler, Australian War Memorial.
At the Battle of the Nek on August 7, 1915, when the entire Australian Army was under English command, four waves of Australian soldiers were sent charging at Turkish machine guns no more than 50 yards away. In the space of just minutes we had 372 killed or wounded, with not a yard gained.
By the end of the war, with the brilliant Australian general Sir John Monash at last in charge, he showed at the Western Front’s Le Hamel, how it could be done. By bringing maximum force on the weakest point in the German line, attacking at night, with tanks doing the heavy lifting, the Australians shattered the German line, took nearly 2 miles of territory at a comparatively minimal casualty rate and provided the model of how it could be done for the rest of the war.
We have much to be proud of, but so much of that pride extends beyond what happened at Gallipoli. I reckon it is time to move on from that story.
Give the public a Captain Cook
Good to see two of the Berejiklian government’s better ministers, Rob Stokes and Dom Perrottet talking up the virtues of investing in good architecture design at the Sydney CBD Summit this week.
“The pandemic has turned the city’s attention on public spaces,” Stokes noted, “and we need to grab that and use that to do great things while we have the opportunity now.”
Treasurer Perrottet agreed, floating an idea: “We could either knock down the Cahill Expressway, or we could at least turn it into the high line. That is the kind of bold decision making which may cost money, but we have to get over the fact that every time we invest in Sydney, it’s seen to be a vanity project. It’s not … it’s a great opportunity not just to recover but to transform.”
Agreed!
But on that very subject the government is getting close, I am told, to announcing their plans for Circular Quay, within spitting distance of where the summit took place. There are two major design proposals on the table. What do they consist of? We don’t know. And there is the nub of the rub and the rub of the nub. Previous iterations of Circular Quay planning have given us the bloody Cahill Expressway and the Toaster? Why can’t we, the people, see what is being proposed this time? And why does it fall only within the bailiwick of the Ministry of Transport, before it submits it to cabinet? Will Stokes and Perrottet get to insist that their fine words above show up in the bricks and mortar that is planned? But I repeat, why no public display of what is being proposed, so we can all have a look? I will be in my trailer.
Plans are on the table for Circular Quay, but the public don’t know the details.Credit:James Alcock
Make your mark, Andrews
Last month, you will recall, I wrote of Priya and Nadesalingam Murugappan, two Tamil refugees who came here separately from war-torn Sri Lanka nigh on a decade ago, seeking asylum. Granted bridging visas they landed together in the tight-knit community of Biloela in central Queensland, worked hard, paid their taxes, and had two Australian born daughters, Kopika and Tharunicaa – only to be raided at 5am on the very day after their visa expired by Australian Border Force accompanied by police and security guards. They are now, if you can believe it, the sole detainees on Christmas Island. They remain there despite a concerted push by community members in Biloela who want them back, not to mention the sheer insanity of the whole situation. (Border Force? Police? Security guards? Christmas Island? All for a family of refugees with two Australian born daughters?
This week, after much pushing, Senator Kristina Keneally managed to visit them. The entire family sleep in one room. She reports the family remains stoic and hopeful and, wonderfully, that the community of Christmas Island have reached out to them, and think it as ludicrous as everyone else that they are there. Despite that, when the little girls leave for school every morning, they are accompanied by guards. (Did I mention this is insane? And that the cost to the Australian taxpayer so farm detaining and trying to deport this family is $50 million.)
“The family are clearly close and loving,” Senator Keneally tells me, “but they are traumatised – by both their past in Sri Lanka and their present circumstances in immigration detention. The family only have hope because so many Australians from regional Queensland and throughout the country want them to come home to Biloela. They asked me to let everyone know how thankful they are for this support, how it keeps them going.
“The Minister for Home Affairs Karen Andrews will make a decision at some point, and I hope it’s to let them stay. But, in the meantime, perhaps she could release the last two children in immigration detention and allow the family to live in the community on Christmas Island.”
And so say all of us. We look to you, Minister Andrews, to make your mark on the side of decency and sanity.
Tharunicaa, left, with her sister Kopika in 2019.Credit:AAP
Another Digger down
Back in 1968, Sid Jeffries and his brother Michael – both raised in an orphanage with their two sisters – volunteered to join the army, and soon found themselves in 7th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment, serving in Vietnam. Michael was killed in action on his second tour, never to meet his son Sean, conceived before he left with his bride of 18 months. Sid returned to Australia, married his sweetheart and had four kids. Though he never stopped grieving for his brother – and did his best to help his widow and family – he threw himself at life thereafter. For him the glass was never either half-full or half-empty, it was always overflowing. And on his coffin last Friday in Albury, that glass had his dentures and some beer in it – because he said he wanted to attend his own funeral with a beer.
Another Digger down this Anzac Day. Vale.
Anecdote of the Week
Winston Churchill’s first impression of Free French leader Charles de Gaulle was not strong. “He looks,” Churchill wrote, “like a female llama who has just been surprised in her bath.”
But he would warm to him and, well after the war was over, when Churchill was in his second incarnation as British prime minister, he and his wife, Clementine, invited President de Gaulle, with his wife, Yvonne, to stay with them briefly at the British prime ministerial country residence, Chequers.
When the subject turned to de Gaulle’s forthcoming retirement, Clementine asked Madame de Gaulle what she was mostly looking forward to in the quiet years ahead.
“A penis,” the Frenchwoman replied without hesitation.
A stunned silence followed, for all of three seconds, until Charles de Gaulle coughed and said, ‘Actually, ma cherie, I think ze English call it ‘appiness’.”
Quotes of the Week
“I think we should be far less rigid in how we approach the vaccination rollout given we know there is no issue with anyone over 50 having the AstraZeneca and there’s quite considerable supply in Australia at the moment, we need to really crack on with it. These are conversations I’m looking forward to having and these are conversations we need to have ... I think we can do better.” – Premier Gladys Berejiklian.
“The spirit of welcome that is here amongst everyone that’s working here, it’s been incredible.” – NZ PM Jacinda Ardern at Queenstown airport to welcome Australians back to New Zealand.
“Suicide prevention is a key priority for the Federal Government. We have always recognised that the rate of suicide of Australian Defence Force members and veterans is unacceptably high. In recognising the sacrifices made by our serving and former members and their families on behalf of the nation, we owe it.” – Scott Morrison, at long last agreeing to a Royal Commission into veteran suicide rates.
“In my first speech as a Senator, I called for a royal commission into veteran suicide. It’s the end of a long fight. For me, for Julie-Ann, for Karen, for Colleen, for Nikki, for too many to name. Today’s the end of a fight, and the start of a whole new one.” – Tweet from Senator Jacqui Lambie.
“Hey, fella, don’t talk for long, people want to go to the toilet.” – Peter V’Landys, imagining what Tommy Raudonikis would say to him about his eulogy.
“We together flew at Mars, and we together now have this Wright brothers moment.” – MiMi Aung, the project manager for Ingenuity to her team after their small robotic helicopter made space exploration history on Monday when it lifted off the surface of Mars and hovered in the wispy air of the red planet. It was the first machine from Earth ever to fly like an airplane or a helicopter on another world.
“Can pain kill you?” –Teenager Alex Braes on his tablet device before he died from septic shock. He had been turned away three times from Broken Hill Hospital’s emergency department.
“Trash TV equals trash town.” - Tess Hall, one of the many locals in Byron Bay protesting against the proposed TV series Byron Baes about purported Byron Bay social influencers.
“Painfully earned justice has arrived for George Floyd’s family and the community here in Minneapolis, but today’s verdict goes far beyond this city and has significant implications for the country and even the world. Justice for black America is justice for all of America. This case is a turning point in American history for accountability of law enforcement and sends a clear message we hope is heard clearly in every city and every state.” - Ben Crump, the Floyd family’s attorney, after Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who was filmed kneeling on the neck of black Minneapolis resident George Floyd on May 25 last year, was found guilty of two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter.
“I’m feeling tears of joy, so emotional.” - George Floyd’s brother Rodney after the verdict.
“Of course, I am sorry that happened, of course that is heartbreaking.” – Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald apologising for the historic assassination of Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1979. The apology is the first such statement from an Irish nationalist leader.
“12 months ago would have been the best time to have done this, but the next best time is right now.” – James Merlino, acting Victorian Premier, about plans to start producing COVID-19 vaccines in Australia, specifically Melbourne.
Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.
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2021-04-24 19:30:00Z
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