Dr STONE (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage) (9:49 AM) —Between 1914 and 1918, hundreds of thousands of young Australians marched off to war and many of them died. Certainly, they fought and were, if they died, buried in places that often their families could only ever imagine. It was not very often the case that the families could visit the war graves in France and Belgium and throughout theatres of war on the Western Front.

Following the war, small and larger communities took up public subscriptions to honour the dead and those who did return. Right throughout Australia you will see, in small country towns and in suburbia, the memorials of trees, honour boards, cairns and cenotaphs. They were placed in schools, in halls, at crossroads in towns and in gardens. These have become sacred places over the years, because of course they are often the centre of the ceremonies for the Anzac Day that we honour in April each year. And I am very pleased and proud to say that each year more and more younger Australians go and honour those who made a supreme sacrifice, or those who served in the first or second world wars or the Vietnam or other wars. So often, we have those names still in a good condition on those memorials. But the Howard government has had the very good sense and the nationalistic spirit to make sure that there has been a grant to upgrade those memorials, where perhaps their lettering has faded or where there has been a need to put on additional names because the community no longer had the funds to put the Vietnam veterans' or later veterans' names upon them.

Unfortunately though, especially in country areas, a lot of the places where these memorials were placed have fallen into disrepair. Country schools have closed, halls have closed, even small towns have disappeared, stranding these sacred places, often in a neglected and degraded state. In my electorate of Murray we have done something about that, and something very serious: we have formed veteran community boards of trustees. They consist of veteran community members, but also other members of the community and members of the local governments of the City of Greater Shepparton, with Moira and Campaspe just now forming up. What they are doing is taking over, where there are no longer veteran communities in place, the guardianship and trusteeship of these various honour boards, cenotaphs, avenues of trees or memorabilia—they might be medals and other artefacts of war that family members do not know what to do with any more.

The board of trustees has been formed with the full support and commendation of the national RSL and the state. I am very proud to say that, in one of his last public acts, Mr Bruce Ruxton launched, very recently, the City of Greater Shepparton Board of Trustees. I recommend it to other members of the House who might be thinking about this problem and say that in rural Australia it is one of those things that we need to do.