The Australian Parliament has established an enquiry by the Australian parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (JSCATSIA) into racism, hate and violence directed at Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

The Defending Country Memorial Project Inc. (DCMP) has lodged a submission to the Committee. https://www.defendingcountry.au/news/equality-in-war-commemoration-can-help-defeat-racism-defending-country-submission-to-parliamentary-inquiry

In the submission to JSCATSIA DCMP submits that in addressing the racism, hate and violence it is essential to broaden the focus of the enquiry to include First Nations deaths in the Australian Wars.

This would give those deaths a status, a respect they have not previously had, the submission said.

“Positive action now would help counter decades – centuries – of systemic racism.”

The Defending Country submission addresses two key terms of reference of the inquiry: ‘The nature, prevalence and impact of racism, hate and violence towards First Nations people, including trends over time (TofR1); ‘Initiatives that are effective in combating racism targeted at First Nations people and reduce individual and collective harm’ (TofR3).

The submission defines systemic racism and shows how it lay beneath the Australian Wars from 1788 and the subsequent ‘Great Australian Silence’. It then describes how equal recognition and commemoration of First Nations’ Australian Wars deaths would help solve racism against First Nations people.

Changing how Australia does commemoration is about equality of respect. A continuing failure to act would be a denial that Australia is ‘the land of the fair go’. Not distinguishing – by skin colour or descent or the identity of the enemy – the worth of service and sacrifice, would help end systemic racism in Australia.

The submission said the story of the Australians who fought and died in the Australian Wars is at least as important as that of the survivors of Australia’s overseas wars.

The submission also contains three recommendations: amending the Australian War Memorial Act 1980 to make the definition of ‘Australian military history’ and the ‘functions’ of the Memorial apply in the same terms to the Australian Wars as to Australia’s overseas wars; amending the Act to make the powers of the Memorial’s Council subject to views expressed by the responsible Minister in writing from time to time; providing for memorials to the Australian Wars to be declared Military Memorials of National Significance under the Military Memorials of National Significance Act 2008.

Each year on Anzac Day we pledge we will remember them. Yet we fail to remember those who died in Australia’s longest and deadliest war – the Frontier Wars.

Declaration of interest: The author is a Defending Country Memorial Project Director.