Does Australia's culture of remembrance need updating? Peter Stanley on ABC LNL

Defending Country President, Professor Peter Stanley, spoke to David Marr on ABC Late Night Live, 20 April 2026. The paraphrased and quoted remarks below are those of Professor Stanley unless otherwise stated. There are links to some recent posts on Defending Country.

Professor Stanley said Anzac Day has changed its nature many times over the years. It is now as much celebration as mourning, perhaps because most of those attending Anzac Day events today lack personal memory of major wars. Anzac Day has become our de facto national day.

The original war memorials and shrines after the Great War became substitute cemeteries because few Australians then could visit battle sites. They were quiet places. 'Anzac Day is so much more noisy these days.'

Anzac today faces a number of challenges, some arising from changing demography. The country that was about 97 per cent Anglo-Celtic a century ago now possibly has a minority of people with a direct connection to either of the two World Wars.

The persistence of Christian liturgy at Anzac Day is incongruous in a country that is no longer predominantly religious. Christian liturgy, however, is good at expressing grief. The Rationalist Society of Australia has tried to get the Australian War Memorial to change its Anzac Day commemoration but without success.

David Marr asked why the War Memorial is so afraid to change. Professor Stanley said there has been change - there is more emphasis on being a tourist attraction, on attracting children - but in other areas there has been fear of change.

For example, there has been 'glacial movement' at the Memorial towards recognition of the Australian (Frontier) Wars. Perhaps the Memorial is looking over its shoulder at the defence and ex-defence community and listening to them in a way that is not tenable today.

There is also the Memorial's willingness to accept donations from arms manufacturers, as well as the revolving door to the arms industry, most notably with former Memorial Director and Council Chair, Brendan Nelson, who is now a senior official at Boeing. This sector gets a seat at the commemoration industry table in a way which, say, the Rationalist Society does not.

To the extent that the Memorial has acted on the Australian Wars, its proposed plan is insulting - just 1 per cent of the gallery space in the greatly expanded Memorial. 'Now, that's pathetic', Professor Stanley said, when First Nations people were about half the number of Australians who have died in war since 1788.

The Memorial also tends to see the Australian Wars as an issue for Black Australians. In fact, the Australian Wars is an aspect of Australian history, both black and white. 'At the moment, the Memorial seems to be paralysed because it doesn’t know how to deal with the various constituencies … [It’s] basically saying we can’t do anything until we work out a way to negotiate with Black Australia ...'. (11.00)

David Marr introduced the issue of whether the Australian Wars were really war. Professor Stanley underlined the importance of getting this question right. 'Once you regard it as war you’ve got two sides … You haven’t just got massacres and anonymous settlers who may or may not have done dirty deeds, you’ve got a conflict, a series of conflicts, dozens of conflicts …'. (12.15)

Professor Stanley said War Memorial Council Chair, Kim Beazley, has rightly spoken of giving First Australians 'the dignity of resistance'. There was a growing awareness within the Memorial of relevant writing, for example, that of Ray Kerkhove on warfare in Queensland, showing that First Nations people resisted fiercely.

The problem is the Memorial’s stakeholders, the Council and the organisations to which the Council pays respect. They aren’t yet informed to the point where they can see it as an historical business. They are caught up on the politics, or the symbolism and indeed the fear that allowing frontier conflict into the Memorial will somehow sully the name of Anzac. So, there’s fear at the base of this, I think. (13.28)

The Memorial deserves credit for its recognition of Black Anzacs - First Nations people wearing the uniform - and Black communities rightly feel pride in these stories. But there is still a way to go:

It’s one of those aspects that you would hope would be a bridge between the White Australia which created Anzac Day, and the future Australia which will mark a very different Anzac Day, a more inclusive Anzac Day. The Memorial’s only moved a bit of the way along that bridge, because it’s basically celebrating, quite rightly, the contributions of Indigenous service people ... It doesn’t yet feel confident enough to make the further steps on the bridge, to say, Yes, these men defend Country today and they defended Country from 1788. We are only half way through that conversation. (15.15)

There is an issue also of how the Memorial commemorates the war experience of Australian immigrants from war-torn areas, such as Afghanistan, the Congo, Iran and Rwanda. There are tens of thousands of Australians today from these areas. They probably feel alienated from our war commemoration. 'At the moment, Anzac Day is only about wars which, if you like, old Australia fought ... [S]ince 2001, Australians have also served in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and in Peacekeeping operations, but the vast bulk of Australian losses were in the two World Wars and the closest of those was 80 years ago.' (18.00)

Remembrance Day, once equal in status to Anzac Day, has declined. Perhaps it could become a day for remembering all wars, not just those where Australians were involved, as combatants or Peacekeepers.

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‍Picture credit: Conflict on the Rufus, South Australia [1866]: Samuel Calvert, engraver, from a sketch by WA Cawthorne, State Library of Victoria: PCINF; IMP 27-07-66 P.308. The so-called Rufus River Massacre was in 1841. It actually included fierce resistance by First Nations people. It is the sort of event that would be covered by a War Memorial firmly and bravely presenting the Australian Wars. Discussion of Rufus River by Amanda Nettlebeck, Journal of Australian Studies, 1999.