A month or so ago, just before Anzac Day, Defending Country President, Peter Stanley, and I had a look at the new foyer of the Australian War Memorial. It's certainly big, big enough, we were told by one of the helpful staff members, to hold 'functions'. The Memorial outsources the organising of these functions to its 'functions contractor', Trippas White Group, who promise 'iconic experiences'.
We had thought the space was big to accommodate large crowds of visiting schoolchildren but, no, they have an entrance round the back. They might pick up sandwiches at Poppy's Cafe, also managed by Trippas White, but they probably bring their own.
There is, we presume, more kit to be placed in that broad expanse at the front. Perhaps a Bushmaster personnel carrier; it could be easily trundled away to make space for Trippas White's festive tables and chairs. (When he was Memorial Director, Brendan Nelson had a side gig as a lobbyist for Thales, manufacturers of Bushmaster, though he kindly donated his fees to the Memorial.)
Some of the existing features tend to get lost in the broad acres: on this level, the Oculus looks like a modest skylight rather than a major feature; Annette Blair's Quiet Skies sculptures (900 glass eucalypt leaves) are off to the sides over a couple of secondary staircases; there is a video presentation of other Australian war memorials running continuously but inconspicuously on one wall; the most prominent feature, opening off the main space, is the revamped bookshop/gift-shop, where again the staff are cheerful and obliging.
On the foyer floor are inscribed the fifteen qualities featured for decades in the windows of the Memorial's Hall of Memory - Resource, Candour, Devotion, Curiosity, Independence, and so on. Brendan Nelson used to say of these words that 'Young Australians seeking values for the world they want need look no further than these'. Young Australians who had been in the Scouts or Guides would have grown up with similar words. Dr Nelson has gone on to be a big wheel with Boeing, the world's fourth largest arms manufacturer by revenue, though he still features on the speaking circuit, stressing values and leadership.
What took our attention on the new foyer's southern wall, though, was the massive picture and the words above it. The Memorial depicted there is way pre-expansion; it is one of the original design sketches c. 1927. The Bean words are very familiar, too, and were featured in the old, more modest Memorial foyer.
Note, however, the words above the Bean quote: 'More than 103,000 Australian men and women have died in war'. The figure of 103,000 matches the one on the official Anzac Portal and on the Memorial's Roll of Honour, for men and women who 'died during or as a result of warlike service, non-warlike service and certain peacetime operations'.
Yet, the Memorial has admitted more than once that around 20,000 Indigenous Australians died in the Australian (Frontier) Wars. For example, the website article 'Colonial period, 1788-1901', last updated in 2021, says this: 'For the Aboriginal inhabitants the cost [of frontier conflict] was far higher: about 20,000 are believed to have been killed in the wars of the frontier' (emphasis added). Then, in 2017, when the Memorial unveiled its expensively purchased painting, 'Ruby Plains Massacre 1', by Kukatja-Wangkajunga artist Rover Thomas (Joolama), the caption read as follows: 'The Ruby Plains Station massacre and many similar violent, tragic confrontations in the course of Indigenous dispossession are estimated to have resulted in the deaths of 20,000 Indigenous people through the 19th and early 20th centuries', as well as much smaller numbers of settlers, soldiers and police. (Other estimates, not from the Memorial, of deaths in the Australian Wars range from 60,000 to 100,000.)
So, is the form of words, 'more than 103,000', a nod to those 20,000 First Nations people killed in the Australian Wars? Probably not. More likely, the words just give the Memorial wriggle room to take account of new names arising from the continuous research to see whether individual uniformed dead qualify for the Roll of Honour, or to anticipate imminent future further deaths. (There is, of course, no comparable assessment for the dead of the Australian Wars, partly because bodies were burned and buried and records were lost.)
On the other hand, there are what Defending Country in the past has called 'tea-leaves', hints of changes of policy and emphasis at the Memorial, that observers like us have to rely on in the absence of clear statements from a notoriously uncommunicative institution. Earlier this year, we looked at the Memorial's Style Guide, the document staff use to ensure consistency when writing for public and internal exposure. On page 23 of that document is a table headed, 'Wars and overseas deployments in which Australia has been involved', and the first entry in that table is 'Frontier Wars/frontier violence, frontier conflict/c. 1788-'.
So, the Australian (Frontier) Wars are among Australia's wars in that Style Guide table but not on the foyer wall. This is typical of the inconsistencies across the Memorial, inconsistencies that drive observers like Defending Country to distraction. As we've said before to and about the Memorial, 'stop playing with words and faffing about'. If that requires a change in the power structure of the place, so be it. In September, the terms of four members of the Memorial Council fall due. There is an opportunity to effect change, if the will exists in government.
One other thing to note in that foyer photo, way down in the bottom right corner: 'Our Memorial commemorates our living history - for every veteran and for every Australian' (emphasis added). Some statements from the Memorial imply it is primarily a place for veterans. Those final three quoted words are another tea-leaf, but encouraging nevertheless.
Picture credit: Peter Stanley
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