On 10 August 2025, Defending Country President, Professor Peter Stanley, wrote to Memorial Director Matt Anderson, with a copy to Memorial Council Chair Beazley. Mr Beazley had encouraged Defending Country to put our ideas.
The letter proposed four Options for the Memorial's treatment of the Australian (Frontier) Wars:
- rename ‘Pre-First World War Gallery West’ as ‘The Australian Wars Gallery’;
- move New Zealand and the Sudan into Gallery East;
- add the words ‘Australian Wars’ to the names of Australian war theatres above the Pool of Reflection; and
- add a panel to the Roll of Honour, acknowledging that between 20,000 and 100,000 died in the Australian Wars.
The letter linked to a fuller description of these options.
The letter was conciliatory: 'We believe that further antagonism [between Defending Country and the Memorial] is in no party’s interests, and hope that you will respond favourably to this constructive, conciliatory, and confidential approach.'
Almost immediately, Mr Anderson acknowledged Professor Stanley's letter:
[10 August 2025]
Dear Peter
My thanks for your email.
Please take this as acknowledgement of receipt; both in content and the spirit with which it was written.
Pls allow me to revert formally.
Aye
Matt
'Aye' means 'always' and is sometimes used in this way by military folk. (Mr Anderson is ex-Army.) 'Revert' means 'reply'.
The Director then sent his formal reply on 19 September. It is not clear whether this reply was copied to Mr Beazley. Key sentences are extracted below, with our comments added:
LETTER
'In September 2022, the Memorial’s Council committed to expand the depiction and presentation of frontier violence in the Memorial’s galleries.'
COMMENT
The Council's 'determination' (decision) included two important qualifications, which greatly reduced its scope: wherever possible depictions of frontier conflict 'would relate to and inform, subsequent Indigenous military service to Australia'; the gallery would 'inform visitors of the significant institutions whose charter it is to tell the full story of Frontier Violence'.
The Memorial has confirmed that this determination, with qualifications, remains its policy, and correctly dated the determination at 19 August 2022, not 'September 2022'.
The Director's summary of the 2022 decision is inaccurate and misleading.
LETTER
'The depiction of frontier violence in the Memorial’s galleries has been in place for many years, including in the previous Colonial galleries. These Colonial galleries conveyed the 19th century history of men from Australian colonies serving in British campaigns in New Zealand, the Sudan, China and South Africa and a small number of works depicting frontier violence (emphasis added). This gallery ... will be reinstated as the Pre-1914 gallery representing these themes and service.'
COMMENT
The previous Colonial galleries included just one work depicting frontier violence: Godfrey Mundy's 1852 lithograph of the Slaughterhouse Creek massacre of 1838.
Under the Memorial's current plans, the 'Pre-1914 gallery' includes 'Gallery West' of 198 square metres, which will cover not only the Australian Wars (between 20,000 and 100,000 deaths) but also the Australian contingents sent to the New Zealand Wars (no deaths) and the Sudan (nine deaths). So, the Australian Wars will share 1.1 per cent of the Memorial's gallery space after the redevelopment.
Accepting now Defending Country's 10 August Options 1 and 2 (rename and move), rather than pushing consideration into the future (two paragraphs in the Director's letter), would show the Memorial's readiness to reconsider now its feckless current policy. It does not need the detailed consultation foreshadowed in the Director's letter to reveal and remedy this glaring anomaly in space allocation.
Accepting now Defending Country's Options 1 and 2 would relieve the Memorial of the continuing burden of ludicrous plans which detract from its status as one of our most important cultural institutions. Undertaking to further consider Defending Country's Options 3 and 4 (war theatres and Roll of Honour) would show that the Memorial is prepared to confront Australia's Black and White history.
LETTER
'The Chair, The Hon Kim Beazley, has spoken of the need and opportunity to highlight the "dignity of resistance" shown by First Nations’ peoples throughout these conflicts.'
COMMENT
The Chair has also called for 'substantial' treatment of the Australian Wars and in a 'separate space'. A slice of 198 square metres shared with two colonial military adventures is neither substantial nor separate. The Director's summary of the Chair's remarks is inaccurate and misleading.
CONCLUSION
The Director's letter of 19 September 2025 can be compared with Acting Director Patterson's letter of 22 July 2024: the sentences quoted above from the Director's letter to Professor Stanley are almost word for word those of the Acting Director 14 months earlier. So much for recognising the 'content' and 'spirit' of Professor Stanley's letter.
Defending Country can only wonder what changed for the Director between 10 August and 19 September: what caused his retreat from encouraging acknowledgement to standard straight-bat-and-wait-till-the-team-is-stood-up fob-off.
We hope the refreshing of the War Memorial Council will see the end of this sort of unhelpful response. It's time for some firm and brave determinations from the Council and firm and brave actions from Memorial management.
Picture credit: Constructing the Memorial dome, c. 1940 (AWM).
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