The Australian War Memorial's treatment of the Australian (Frontier) Wars - our longest and most deadly war - has been confusing and misleading. It is well past time for the Memorial to come clean on what it plans and when and how it will be implemented.
Defending Country (and Honest History before it) has been saying for nearly three years that the Memorial Council's determination of 19 August 2022 was the Memorial's policy on frontier conflict. We had, however, been so disconcerted by the Memorial's dissembling (as described in Appendix A below) that we wondered whether it had adopted another policy and not told anyone.
We put in an FOI request on 14 March asking the Memorial for 'access to internal documents, including Memorial Council decisions, disclosing the current policy of the Memorial on the recognition and commemoration of frontier conflict'. We noted that an extract of the confirmed Minutes of Council meeting No. 178 (19 August 2022), including the text of a Council decision on frontier conflict, had been released to Senate Estimates in September 2023. In other words, it was a public document.*
The Memorial replied on 11 April: 'I am satisfied that the Department has undertaken reasonable searches in relation to your request and that no documents were in possession of the Department as of the date of this decision 11 April 2025' (emphasis added).
Puzzled, given what we knew of the history and the documents, on 8 May we asked the Memorial to do an 'internal review', as provided in the FOI Act:
Summing up Defending Country's view, the Council determination of 19 August 2022 became 'the policy of the Memorial' on frontier conflict. That the determination was a statement of policy was confirmed by the Senate Estimates documentation of September 2023, by your [Assistant Director Patterson's] reliance on it in your letter of 22 July 2024 - and, indeed, by then Council Chair Nelson's remark on 29 September 2022 commencing, 'The council has made the decision that we will have a much broader, much deeper depiction and presentation of the violence committed against Aboriginal people' (emphasis added). Chair Nelson surely meant the decision (determination) to be regarded as a statement of policy.
We noted that 'Section 9 of the Memorial's Act (Australian War Memorial Act 1980) says, "The Council is responsible for the conduct and control of the affairs of the Memorial and the policy of the Memorial with respect to any matters shall be determined by the Council"' (emphasis added).
The Memorial replied on 10 June:
I can confirm the Memorial Council determination of 19 August 2022 outlines current policy for the recognition and commemoration of frontier violence and refer to where this was released under FOI and published [on] our disclosure log, link. This is the same advice, as you note, that was released to Parliament and published in response to a question on notice ... I have had regard to your comments in your request for an internal review and agree a determination by Council can and in this case does constitute policy. (Emphasis added.)
Conclusion
So, the Memorial has confirmed that the Council determination of 19 August 2022 is current policy. That determination (below), however, remains manifestly inadequate because of the restrictive qualifying provision in its third sentence and the 'look elsewhere' disclaimer in its fourth sentence:
It was agreed that Frontier Violence perpetrated against Aboriginal Australians would, as in the previous Colonial Galleries, continue to be presented in the new Pre-1914 galleries. It would provide a broader and deeper depiction and presentation of the violence perpetrated against Indigenous Australians. Wherever possible it would relate to and inform, subsequent Indigenous military service to Australia, providing a context for that service. The gallery will inform visitors of the significant institutions whose charter it is to tell the full story of Frontier Violence. The gallery will be developed in full consultation with the Council throughout its development.
Perhaps now the Memorial will tell us and others - in a substantial speech by the Council Chair or the Director - what it is doing to either implement the inadequate policy of 19 August 2022 or to rescind that policy and adopt another, better one.
Appendix A: Defending Country posts discussing the determination of 19 August 2022
Appendix-A-Defending-Country-posts.pdf
* The request also dealt with the proposed allocation of space in the redeveloped Memorial. We will take that up in a separate post.
Picture credit: Massacre at Skull Hole, Mistake Creek, Queensland (Carl Lumholtz, 1888/Wikimedia Commons). This was the site of the alleged Bladensburg massacre, in which around 200 Aboriginal people were killed in c.1872.
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