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Wednesday, 22 June 2011
Page: 7050

Mr FRYDENBERG ( Kooyong ) ( 17 : 51 ): As I was saying before the quorum, Sapper Robinson, 23, was tragically killed on 6 June in Afghanistan, where he was serving with the Special Operations Task Group. He is the 27th Australian to lose his life in this difficult and distant conflict.

Sapper Robinson leaves behind his loving parents, Marie and Peter, sister Rachael and brothers Ben and Troy. In the words of his family:

He knew the risk of his job and accepted it. It’s harder for us to accept he has been taken from us before his time—but we know he died protecting his mates and doing a job that he loved, a job for which he was greatly respected by the people who served by his side.

Sapper Robinson joined the Army in 2006 and subsequently became a member of the 3rd Combat Engineers Regiment and later the Incident Response Regiment, based in Sydney. He was on his second deployment to Afghanistan, having been first deployed on Operation Slipper in 2007.

Over his short but full life, his father Peter said that his son had:

… his fair share of luck. He escaped the jaws of a shark while surfing at South Kingscliff Beach and walked away from a motor vehicle accident when he rolled his brother's car.

He had been run over by an armoured vehicle, and a soldier walking beside him once stood on a home-made bomb that did not detonate. But at his son's funeral Peter said:

… that luck ran out on a hilltop in southern Afghanistan.

In the words of his commanding officer at IRR:

He epitomised everything that a special operations engineer can be and should be—bravery, mateship and a willingness to risk one's life so that others may live; those were his qualities, and to a soldier, we aspire to them.

The Australian Chief of Army, Lieutenant-General Ken Gillespie, put it this way:

As a Sapper, he led from the front, looking for threats and disabling those devices to keep his mates safe.

The death of Sapper Robinson is a tragedy for our nation and a tragedy for his family. His contribution to this vitally important mission of bringing security and stability to Afghanistan is not in vain, nor will it be forgotten by a grateful nation. Lest we forget.