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- 12 November 2003
Kokoda Track Foundation
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Page: 4789
The Hon. CHARLIE LYNN [9.44 p.m.]: Last Saturday I was a keynote speaker for the Services Clubs Association of New South Wales at its annual convention in Canberra. My talk was based on the Kokoda campaign in Papua New Guinea [PNG] during the period from July to November 1942. Later that evening I briefed the club representatives on the Kokoda Track Foundation that we have recently established to provide educational and health support to the Kioari and Orokaivean people who live in villages along the track. These are the grandsons and granddaughters of the fuzzy-wuzzy angels who helped us when we needed it during our darkest days in 1942. Many were never paid for the work they did for our Diggers and, to our great shame, none has ever received a medal. Our friends in PNG now need our help. We have not managed our relationship at all well since they gained independence in 1975 and much of our aid has been wasted. PNG does not have a welfare system and the people who live along the track operate a subsistence economy.
The devaluation of their national currency, the Kina, over recent years has caused a rationalisation in the provision of air services to many of the villages. As a result, many of them are not able to get their fruit and vegetables to markets in Port Moresby. The Kokoda Track itself has been neglected by successive governments since the end of the war. Until the opening of a new memorial at Isurava last year there was not a single monument along the track and most of the battle sites have been reclaimed by the jungle. Over recent years more and more Australians are visiting PNG to trek across the Kokoda Track. This has included corporate training groups, school groups, professional sporting groups, descendants of veterans who fought in the campaign and other adventurous individuals with an interest in our military history. Those who make the journey are humbled by the hospitality they receive from their guides and porters and from the people who live in the villages.
Sadly, they are also struck by the lack of educational and health facilities in the villages, the evidence of malnutrition and malaria amongst the younger ones and the lack of opportunity they have for the future. The Kokoda Track Foundation was formed to address these issues. One of the primary objectives of the foundation is to have the Kokoda Track established as a national memorial park with a view to creating a self-sustaining eco-adventure tourism industry for the Kioari and Orokaivean people who live along it. We are hopeful that this will serve as a model for other eco-adventure tourism opportunities in Papua New Guinea. As a first step in developing this strategy we are hosting a workshop at the University of Technology that will include representatives from Australia and PNG. It will be facilitated by two international experts on eco-tourism in Third World countries. We are indebted to Oil Search PNG for its generous support for the workshop.
On 20 August 2003 the foundation hosted a leadership oration in honour of Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Honner DSO MC, who was the commander of the 39th Battalion at the battle for Isurava. The foundation raised $12,000 from the oration, and this will be used to train a paramedic from each village and to establish a medical aid station within each village. Our next objective was to raise funds to support the educational development of young village students. It costs about $1,000 to pay for full board, books, uniforms and school fees at the PNG national high school at Sogeri. When I briefed the service clubs representatives on this need their support was immediate and overwhelming. Merrylands RSL and Canterbury-Hurlstone Park RSL contributed $10,000 each. Rooty Hill RSL and the Albury Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen's clubs gave $5,000 each. Swansea RSL, Cardiff RSL, Pelican Flat RSL and Lidcombe RSL each gave $1,000.
Many other clubs gave a commitment to support proposals at upcoming board meetings. To date the foundation has received $38,000. The PNG Department of Education has been advised and is in the process of selecting students from village schools to prepare for their first year at Sogeri High School for the start of the 2004 school year. The Treasurer should take careful note of this generosity because it goes to the heart of what the services clubs are all about. These clubs realise they have to live in a modern competitive economy and that they have serious community obligations. Seminars such as that conducted by the Services Clubs Association last weekend are designed to improve management and marketing practices so clubs can better serve their local communities. They also play a pivotal role in providing facilities and support for our aged veterans and our seniors.
Most of the valuable community work they do does not appear on the Treasury balance sheets because they operate below the radar of the bean counters. I have also observed that a large number of Vietnam veterans are involved in the running of these services clubs. These veterans are the custodians of our proud military heritage at the local level in our rural, regional and urban communities. The sum of these communities represents our Australian identity today. These blokes do not drive flash cars and they do not have money stashed away in Swiss bank accounts. What they do have they give to their fellow veterans who need help and to their local communities. They are the dinkum article and you do not have to be in their company for very long to become aware of the strong bonds that exist between them and the strong sense of compassion they have for their communities.
The Premier and the Treasurer have to be very careful they do not destroy these unique Australian community organisations because of an overzealous approach from the economic rationalists in Treasury. Government is not capable of filling the social and community void their demise would cause. I am indebted to the Services Clubs Association for its spontaneous and generous support to the Kokoda Track Foundation. The educational sponsorships they have provided will give hope to those who do not have a great deal going for them at the moment, and I hope it might serve to remind the Premier and the Treasurer of what these services clubs are all about.
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