This Defending Country website contains much basic documentation in support of our arguments. See especially the articles 'Defending Country' and 'Why the Australian Frontier Wars are important'. This new graphic summarises some important points:
What a nation commemorates shows what it regards as important. A nation which embraces the concept of Defending Country, a nation which does not distinguish by skin colour or descent or the identity of the enemy the worth of ‘service and sacrifice’ to defend Country, is a different nation from what went before. That is the kind of Australia which could grow from real change at the War Memorial.
Some of us use the term ‘service and sacrifice’ to apply to what has traditionally been the focus of the Australian War Memorial. What is the difference between the sacrifice made by a First Australians warrior—and often his family and children—defending their Country, and that made by a uniformed soldier, sailor or flyer defending Australia?
Australians have placed a high value on ‘service and sacrifice’ by Australians in wars fought overseas. Extending this to service and sacrifice by Australians in wars fought on Country should be an easy and obvious step.
The burden of proving that there is a difference between these two forms of service and sacrifice lies on the opponents of the proper recognition and commemoration of the Australian Wars at the Memorial. The fact that Indigenous families—as well as warriors—were killed or wounded in the Australian Wars makes those wars more like wars in the rest of the world—World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Ukraine, Yemen, Gaza—not less.
Extract from 'Why the Australian Frontier Wars are important'.
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