How long will it be before an Australian prime minister sees no difference between the 'universe of grief' flowing to families from a death in uniform in one of Australia's overseas wars and the universe of grief felt by the descendants of a First Nations Australian killed in the Australian Wars?
On 12 February, the Prime Minister delivered his annual speech and report-tabling on Closing the Gap. Like previous such speeches, this one showed slow progress on closing the nineteen gaps, contained announcements of new targeted expenditure, and included exhortations to continue work at all levels of government and in First Nations-led initiatives.
'The challenges facing us are significant, complex and connected, with causes that reach back generations', the PM said. The intergenerational effects of colonisation persist.
The day after his Closing the Gap speech the PM spoke on the 18th anniversary of the Apology to the Stolen Generations. That speech confirmed there is more to coming to terms with Australia's past than those nineteen action areas, important as they are. The Apology, as the PM said, 'was an honest reckoning with our history'.
Closing the Gap has a broader context. The Apology is part of that context. So was the Voice; so is Treaty; so is Truth-telling.
Truth-telling includes bridging what Defending Country has called 'the Commemoration Gap'. When the PM spoke at the Australian War Memorial on 2 February, beneath the Roll of Honour, with its 100 000 names, he said, 'Each name the heart of its own universe of grief'. He ended his speech with the traditional words, 'Lest We Forget'.
In contrast with that Roll of Honour of the uniformed dead, however, we lack a comprehensive listing of the Australian men, women and children who died in the Australian Wars between 1788 and at least 1928. There were perhaps 100 000 of these Australians, although we will never have a precise figure and we will never know most of their names. Black deaths in massacres and resistance were suppressed or not recorded or the records were 'lost'. Bodies were burned and buried, bones scattered.
There has been no national Apology for those Australian dead. The closest we came was Prime Minister Keating at Redfern in 1992: 'We [Whites] took the traditional lands and smashed the traditional way of life. We brought the diseases. The alcohol. We committed the murders. We took the children from their mothers. We practised discrimination and exclusion. It was our ignorance and our prejudice.'
From shared understanding and acceptance of our Black and White Australian history comes Reconciliation and healing. Closing the Commemoration Gap should bring psychic benefits to Blackfellers and Whitefellers alike. It would show that, in meeting our 'challenges', there is more at stake than better numbers.
Prime Minister Albanese's words at the Apology anniversary apply just as much to closing the Commemoration Gap:
Our nation came together [at the time of the Apology in 2008], united in the fundamental decency that I believe remains our truest guiding light.
The Apology was a moment of catharsis, and it was a moment of healing ...
Truth is essential because we can only truly know where we’re going if we know where we’ve been.
That is the great journey we can be on together.
For some of us, that journey will not be easy. Despite the evidence (most recently presented in the book The Australian Wars) some non-Indigenous Australians refuse to acknowledge that this conflict ever happened or, if it did, that we all should 'get over it'. (They do not insist that we should 'get over' deaths in uniform, however long ago they were. Sam Wallman's brilliant cartoon 'Lest We For/Get Over It 2018' nails this point.) First Nations people, however, know from stories passed down through the generations that the Australian Wars did happen and that the scars remain.
War commemoration has been a major part of the Australian psyche since at least 1901. The Australian War Memorial has been described by many people, including prime ministers, as our most sacred place. Other shrines and memorials have a similar status.
We commemorate what we regard as important. Properly recognising and commemorating the Australian Wars in our iconic shrines and memorials, starting with the Australian War Memorial, would show that Australians - Black and White - regard these wars and their consequences as important. It would complement Closing the Gap and the Apology and contrast with the trauma which made Closing the Gap and the Apology necessary.
Prime Minister Albanese said that each name on the Roll of Honour was 'the heart of its own universe of grief'. They are beautiful words. But how long will it be before an Australian prime minister sees no difference between the 'universe of grief' flowing to families from a death in uniform in one of Australia's overseas wars and the universe of grief felt by the descendants of a First Nations Australian killed in the Australian Wars?
Lest We Forget indeed.
Defending Country posts since 2023 on Closing the Gap (including links to the reports) can be found using our Search engine. The above post draws upon three previous posts on the Commemoration Gap, in March 2024, February 2025, and August 2025. See also our summary of the Defending Country concept, in which deaths defending Country on Country are treated equally with deaths in uniform.
Picture credit: report cover: Closing the Gap: Commonwealth Annual Report 2025; Commonwealth Implementation Plan 2026
Defending Country will publish (subject to our Editorial and Moderation Policy) without amendment any comment the Memorial wishes to make on this post.
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