The Australian War Memorial is a complex institution - a memorial, a museum and an archive. Complex institutions face complex issues. The recent Audit Office report shows there have been significant problems in the Memorial's management of its big building project. The responsible Minister has called for Expressions of Interest from the public to fill five or more positions on the Memorial's governing Council. The Memorial's record on properly recognising the Australian Frontier Wars has been way short of its rhetoric. Perhaps a new Council will help close this gap as well as improving the oversight of Memorial management.
Amend the Act ...
More is needed, however. Section 3 of the Australian War Memorial Act 1980 should be amended to make the definition of ‘Australian military history’ include the history of ‘wars and warlike operations after 1788 within Australia and involving Indigenous Australians, including the events leading up to, and the aftermath of, such wars and warlike operations’.
Further, section 5 of the Act should be amended to make the functions of the Memorial include maintaining and developing the Memorial ‘as a national memorial of Australians who have died … (iii) as a result of any war or warlike operations after 1788 within Australia and involving Indigenous Australians’.
There are three reasons for amending the legislation in this way: to remove the Memorial's interpretive 'wriggle room'; to end the Memorial's misuse of its corporate planning process; to stop the Memorial's dithering and shilly-shallying.
to remove the Memorial's interpretive 'wriggle room'
First, the Memorial claims two interpretations of the Act allow it to depict frontier conflict (page 25). A 1992-93 interpretation found this conflict came within the definition of ‘Australian military history’ in section 3 of the Act; a 2013 interpretation referred to the Memorial’s capacity under section 6 of the Act ‘to do all things necessary or convenient to be done for or in connection with the performance of its functions’.
Having two interpretations available gives the Memorial unnecessary ‘wriggle room’. Amending the Act as set out above will make it clear what the Parliament expects of the Memorial.
to end the Memorial's misuse of its corporate planning process
Secondly, the Memorial has previously used its corporate plans to narrow the words of its Act.
Section 3 of the Act says ‘“Australian military history means the history of: (a) wars and warlike operations in which Australians have been on active service, including the events leading up to, and the aftermath of, such wars and warlike operations; and (b) the Defence Force.’ (Emphasis added.)
From its 2018-19 to its 2021-25 corporate plans, the Memorial’s ‘Mission Statement’ was ‘Leading remembrance and understanding of Australia’s wartime experience’. The 2022-26 and 2023-27 plans dropped the Mission Statement, while retaining an even narrower ‘Purpose’: ‘To commemorate the sacrifice of those Australians who have died in war or on operational service and those who have served our nation in times of conflict’.
This narrowing process has allowed the Memorial to get into microscopic examination of what Australians have done during ‘wars and warlike operations’. That is well short of ‘Australian military history’, as defined in the Act, particularly in its lack of reference to events before and after our overseas wars.
The Memorial’s Strategic Plan 2023-2028, published in April 2023, shows a similar pattern. This plan includes four ‘Strategic Pillars’, the first of which is ‘Commemorate, reflect and understand Australian experiences of war and service’. Under that pillar are four dot points, the third of them reading, ‘Advancing the public’s understanding of military history and its connection to the present’ and the fourth, ‘Expanding and deepening our collection, gallery displays, research and online content relating to Australia’s frontier violence’ (emphasis added in both cases).
Including the words ‘frontier violence’ is an advance; they do not appear at all in the current corporate plan (2023-2027, 2023-24 update). On the other hand, ‘military history’ and ‘frontier violence’ are dealt with separately in those dot points and frontier violence lacks the ‘connection to the present’ that military history has.
So, war can have present-day traumatic effects for those who make military history, but not for First Nations Australians who suffer intergenerational trauma from frontier violence.
to stop the Memorial's dithering and shilly-shallying
Thirdly, having the Act state clearly the Memorial’s responsibilities on frontier conflict would steer it away from compromises, half measures, dissembling, and deliberately missing the main point. For example, its efforts to publicise cases of Indigenous service in uniform – defending Australia overseas – have been seen as a ‘fig leaf’ for its failure to recognise First Nations warriors in frontier conflict – defending Country on Country.
The Memorial has also focussed on cases where First Nations victims of frontier violence went on to serve in the King’s or Queen’s uniform. ‘What we seek to do’, Memorial Director Anderson told Rachel Perkins, director of The Australian Wars, in 2021 (episode 3, mark 57.00), ‘is to tell the story of frontier violence in the way in which it affected the men and the women who joined the Australian Imperial Forces and went away’.
In other words, despite members of their family being massacred or poisoned, or shot while resisting settler attacks, the test was whether First Nations people still loyally joined the colours. Two years later, Memorial management and some members of its governing Council were still taking that line.
This spin did not match the public statements of successive Council Chairs: Chair Nelson in September 2022 had announced a ‘much broader, a much deeper depiction and presentation of the violence committed against Indigenous people’; Chair Beazley after December 2022 had said the coverage of the Frontier Wars would be ‘substantial’ and in a ‘separate section’.
Then, in September 2023, the Memorial quietly released the Council's August 2022 decision (after it had been kept secret for over a year). The decision was heavily qualified, not only showing the preference for portraying Frontier Wars victims who later became uniformed soldiers but also insisting that other national institutions than the Memorial should tell ‘the full story’ of the Frontier Wars. People who had taken the Chairs at their word - 'much broader, much deeper', 'substantial', 'separate section' - were entitled to feel misled.
Conclusion
Minister Keogh should ensure that an amending Bill is urgently included in the government's legislation timetable. Meanwhile, the Minister should write to the Memorial Council Chair to foreshadow amending legislation along the lines set out in this article. That would be a clear signal to the Council to change the Memorial’s approach within the terms of the current Act but in advance of amending legislation.
The Memorial needs a different Council, one that has the skills to properly monitor big projects and that is committed to real action on the Australian Frontier Wars. And it needs an amended Act, one that spells out clearly what the Parliament expects.
Image credit: View of the newly completed Australian War Memorial building, situated among paddocks, 1941.
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