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The Hon. CHARLIE LYNN [6.03 p.m.]: It is my great honour tonight to welcome to the Chamber and introduce my very good friend from Naduri village, Mr Ovoau Indiki, his son Andy, and two people who have helped me tremendously over the past 11 years in trekking across the Kokoda Track: my head guide, Mr Alex Ramos, and my second head guide, Mr Francis Siga. This is a great honour because, as I said yesterday, today is the sixtieth anniversary of the third day of the Battle at Isurava. As I said last night in the House, 60 years ago the fate of Australia hung in the balance as young men fought a desperate battle, holding the line against a very superior force. Because our support aircraft had been taken out in a bombing attack on Port Moresby, the only way we could resupply our forward troops was with labour from Papua New Guinea, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels. They were indentured labour.
Under the old colonial regime Mr Ovoau Indiki was the village constable for Naduri village. He proudly wears a Papua New Guinea independence medal from 1975 but, to our great shame, he wears no medal presented to him by the Australian Government. To this day we have not honoured their service with a medal. Hopefully this is something we can correct in the very near future. As I said, they were our indentured labour to carry our supplies forward. Without that support our diggers would have been defeated. That is a matter of historical fact. They were not paid to carry our wounded back along the track. There was no medical evacuation system. When they came across wounded diggers who could no longer make their way these selfless men—young men at the time—made stretchers out of rough material and picked them up. It took them up to three weeks to travel from Eora Creek back to Sogeri.
One of the men who was carried out was an Australian sapper by the name of Bert Beros. I had the great honour of taking Bert Beros' grandson, Ian Beros, across the Kokoda Track a couple of years ago and he met with Ovoau. It was a very emotional moment. Without the selfless support of Ovoau and his people Bert's grandson would not have been conceived. We owe these people a great debt. When Bert Beros was recuperating in Sogeri hospital he penned a few words of his experience. He coined the phrase "Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels"—they were known as Fuzzy Wuzzys. I would like to share his poem with the House because it captures the spirit and symbolism of the selfless service these people provided. There were many mums back in Australia whose boys—15, 16 and 17-year-olds—were serving up there. The mums had no news of how they were going and could not find out anything because there was no communication system such that we have today. The poem written by Bert Beros reads:
Many a mother in Australia
when her day's work is done
Sends a prayer to the almighty
for the keeping of her Son
Asking that an angel guide him
and bring him safely back
Now it seems her prayers are answered
up on the Kokoda Track
'Tho they haven't any haloes
only holes made in their ears
Their faces are marked with tattoos
they wear scratchpins in their hair
Bringing back the wounded
as steady as a hearse
Using leaves to keep the rain off
and as gentle as a nurse
Slow and steady in bad places
on that awful mountain track
The look upon their faces
makes us think that Christ is black.
Every care to help the wounded
they treat him like a saint
It's a picture worth recording
that an artists yet to paint
Many a lad will see their mothers
and husbands their wee ones and wives
Just because the fuzzy-wuzzies
carried them out and saved their lives
From mortar and machine gun fire
and chance surprise attack
To safety and the care of doctors
at the bottom of the Track
May the mothers of Australia
when they offer up a prayer
Just mention those impromptu angels
with the fuzzy-wuzzy hair.
Fellow members, we are greatly honoured in this Chamber tonight, on the sixtieth anniversary of the battle of Isurava, to have one of those very angels in our midst. I welcome him again to the Chamber and look forward to sharing the next few days with him as we proceed towards the great Kokoda memorial game at Stadium Australia this Saturday night.