Mr ANTHONY SMITH (11:44 AM) —It is a pleasure to speak on the Prime Minister’s motion remembering VP Day. When I sat down with local RSL presidents six or eight weeks ago and asked them how they would like to commemorate VP Day in the electorate of Casey the four of them said that they wanted to have a function that involved their RSL representatives but also local schoolchildren. They wanted to pass on the message of service and sacrifice to the next generation to ensure that the deeds and the contribution of their generation and what those who had lost their lives sacrificed would go on in the minds of the next generation.

So on Monday that is exactly what we did in a function co-hosted with the RSLs and the Shire of Yarra Ranges. A function was held in Lilydale with representatives of 28 schools and we heard moving reflections from a local historian, Mr Anthony McAleer, from a local veteran from the Croydon RSL, Bill Lipscombe, and from two family members who gave a perspective on what it was like waiting for the return of their loved ones—from Cath Hill and from Sylvia Morse, both from Lilydale. We also heard from the Mayor of the Shire of the Yarra Ranges, David Hodgett, and from Bob Richardson from the Lilydale RSL. The four RSL presidents from Croydon, Lilydale, Monbulk and Mount Evelyn presented each of the students with a commemorative plaque and a native sapling that will stay in each of those schools as a lasting reminder of World War II and VP Day.

I particularly thank Ron Buisman from Lilydale Trophies and Engraving Services, who produced the plaques and did so in a short space of time, and Len Cox from Correa Nursery in Montrose for providing the native saplings. I thank all of the RSL presidents—John Surridge from Monbulk, Ken Gibbons from Croydon, Bill Sibley from Mount Evelyn and particularly Bob Richardson from the Lilydale RSL, who worked tirelessly to bring about the event on Monday and to make it the success it was. I also thank all of the school students, the principals, the teachers and the parents who came along and made the day the success it was.

It was a time to look back on the local contribution from Lilydale, Croydon, Mount Evelyn and the entire Casey electorate and to remember the fact that local communities paid an incredible price and made an incredible sacrifice as part of our national contribution to the Second World War. Anthony McAleer, the local historian, spoke in great detail of what Lilydale—still very much a country town but one that has grown—was like at the start of the war, through the war, and on VP Day in 1945 when news that the war was over reached the town. He spoke of the celebrations that occurred in Lilydale and in Croydon in the main street. Those celebrations are very particular to those local towns in some ways but really just reflective of what would have happened across Australia 60 years ago in the streets of every town, be it in the electorate of Casey or in my colleague’s electorate of McPherson, where local communities united as part of a national story.

And what a national story it was that we look back on! Sixty years ago Australia emerged from its greatest and longest conflict. Australians fought World War II from beginning to end to defend Australia, to defend our allies and to defend our free way of life. Through this motion, as we remember the end of that war 60 years ago, we rightly reflect on a truly special generation of Australians. We remember of course those brave Australians who gave their lives. We remember them first. We remember and thank those Australians who fought in the war and returned safely. As previous speakers, including the member for Bendigo, have done, we remember those who fought on the home front ensuring that our troops overseas had all the supplies they needed and keeping our economy going so that we could fight the war and win.

We thank both of those groups not just for everything they did during the war but, as the member for Boothby said, for everything they did after the war as well—for rebuilding Australia and for setting it on the path to success and opportunity that we all enjoy today and see 60 years on.

It is often rightly said that the diggers of 1939 to 1945 were very much like the Anzacs of World War I. There is a lot of truth in that. In many ways, they were. They went to war to defend the same principles. Like the first Anzacs, their character comprised courage, valour, selflessness, sacrifice and so much more. And like them, as previous speakers have referred to, they displayed that same unstinting mateship that has been part of our defence forces from day one. They also displayed that quintessential Australian ingenuity as they went about their duties—an ingenuity that was first on display in bucket loads on the shores of Gallipoli.

What is not so often recognised is that the diggers of 1939 to 1945 were in many ways different from the original Anzacs. It is these differences that make them special in our history—differences that make their feats and their service something that was a first for Australia. Unlike the original Anzacs, they went to war in 1939 and through the early 1940s with no illusions about war. They did not go to war wondering what it was like. Those who fought in the Second World War knew exactly what they were getting into. Those who fought in the Second World War had grown up knowing that fathers, uncles, brothers and family friends had been killed or maimed in the First World War. The diggers of World War II did not leave our shores with the romanticism the first Anzacs had. They did not leave with any innocent curiosity. They left knowing that war was not an adventure. They knew that it was a costly, awful and bloody business.

Many of the first Anzacs sailed from our shores with a tragic underestimation of what lay ahead in foreign lands, but the diggers of World War II left our shores with a tragic and stoic knowledge of precisely what lay ahead. The debt we owe all of those who served in that conflict—a massive conflict that reached our shores and was fought in our region as well as across the globe—can never be repaid. The contribution of those people has provided much to our nation and to other nations as well.

Like the first Anzacs, those who fought in the conflict and who paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives may have thought—they certainly would have hoped—that they were fighting a war that would end all wars. They would be sad to know that that was not the case. They would be sad to know that there have been other conflicts and that the challenges to democracy, freedom and our way of life always continue in one form or another. But we can be sure that they would be humble that Australia has remembered them in the way it has this last week and that we are recognising them in the way we are in this parliament.

They would be proud to know that the principles that they fought and died for have been defended by brave servicemen and servicewomen of Australia in other conflicts. They would be relieved that the Australia they grew up in and loved and defended is today still a free and democratic country of opportunity. They would be amazed at the progress Australia has made in the past 60 years. But I think they would also be particularly proud that the nations of Germany and Japan and Italy, nations whom we fought against in the Second World War, are today also nations of freedom and democracy. To them, I think that would be confirmation that their gallant efforts did not just defend our way of life but spread opportunities and freedoms and the principles and values of democratic societies into other nations around the world so that the people of those nations today can have opportunities that did not exist 60 and 65 years ago.