Both parties criticise booing at Anzac Day dawn service
The minister for veterans’ affairs, Matt Keogh, says booing heard at a dawn service in Melbourne was “concerning”.
Speaking to Sky News earlier, Keogh said that it wasn’t “mandatory” for people to attend services, but if they did, they needed to be respectful.
These are days of commemoration, they’re days of peaceful respect…
It’s expected that people who do attend Anzac day ceremonies do so respectfully and it’s concerning that some people didn’t show due respect to that service.
Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, who has previously served in the ADF, told Sky News he didn’t want to give the person responsible for the booing “any more air time”.
I don’t think that person deserves any more airtime than they’ve been given already … It’s one person, one person out of a nation that gathered [en] mass to acknowledge this day. This day isn’t about that person, it’s about those who served and sacrificed.
Key events
Luca Ittimani
Victorian police have interviewed a man for offensive behaviour after attendees at an Anzac day dawn service booed and heckled during a welcome to country.
Police interviewed a 26-year-old Kensington man for offensive behaviour and directed him to leave the Shrine of Remembrance. Victoria Police will proceed with a case via summons, a spokesperson said.
Peter Dutton has called the movement of neo-nazis in Australia an “outrage and a disgrace”, appearing on the Today show to commemorate Anzac day.
Dutton attended a dawn service in Brisbane this morning, with his wife Kirilly.
Dutton says federal laws have been toughened to stop the display of Nazi symbols.
Our diggers fought against the Nazis and [that] this movement of neo-Nazis has any presence in our country at all is just an outrage and a disgrace. And we’ve toughened the laws at a federal level to stop the display of Nazi symbols…
That it could be glorified by Australians here… it should be condemned.
Sarah Basford Canales
Dutton travels to second Anzac day event
Peter Dutton has travelled to Samford for a second Anzac day event in his electorate today.
We’re still in Dickson but the town in the mountains north-west of Brisbane hugs the electorate’s border with Blair, held by Labor’s Shayne Neumann on a 5.23% two-party preferred margin.
The opposition leader is joined again by his wife, Kirilly, sitting in the front row. He’s expected to lay a wreath but make no remarks.
Barnaby Joyce promises no cuts to Department of Veterans’ Affairs despite Coalition commitment
Joyce says there will be “no cuts” to the department of veterans’ affairs under the Coalition’s commitment to cut 41,000 public servants from Canberra over the next five years. He says, “I can promise you that when there will not be cuts in DVA”.
The Coaltion has said there will be no forced redundancies and will look instead at natural attrition (where you don’t refill a role when a worker leaves) and hiring freezes. Joyce says:
You look for people in retirement, and you do the cogent work of seeing if there can be any greater efficacy in the delivery, in the delivery of the taxpayers money by public servants. Now if, quite obviously, the …reduction in their frontline service means harm to somebody else, then it doesn’t pass the test, does it?
Joyce admits mistakes were made in the past such as a lack of staff in the department of veterans’ affairs and the culture within the Department of Defence – both issues which were brought up by the royal commission.
Joyce says he won’t engage in a debate on the issue on Anzac day and would talk more about those issues at a later time, but said he wouldn’t “start making excuses” about the problems that the royal commission identified:
I’m not going to start making excuses, nor… participate in a parochial debate on Anzac Day. I’m quite happy to have it on another but let’s just go with the process of if you make a mistake, you fix it up. And we have offered bipartisan support in making sure that this issue is fixed up.
Barnaby Joyce calls booing an ‘utter disgrace’
Shadow veterans’ affairs minister Barnaby Joyce has also spoken to RN Breakfast, and calls the booing in Melbourne an “utter disgrace”.
Joyce calls the dawn service one of the “most sacred” ceremonies in Australia:
… Australians are pretty easy going. We don’t like to yak … on or carry on, but [it is] the most sacred day for us as a day and the dawn service is probably our most sacred ceremony. And any person who desecrates that in any way, shape or form, is a complete and utter disgrace.
Luca Ittimani
RSL Victoria condemns ‘completely disrespectful’ behaviour during Melbourne dawn service
RSL Victoria has joined Victoria’s premier and the federal government in condemning the “completely disrespectful” behaviour.
The boos and yells recurred throughout a welcome to country delivered by Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown at the 5:30 am service at the city’s Shrine of Remembrance. RSL Victoria’s branch president, Robert Webster, said:
The actions of that very small minority were completely disrespectful to veterans and the spirit of Anzac Day. In response to that, the applause of everybody else attending drowned it out and showed the respect befitting of the occasion.
Melbourne man Dave said other attendees at the service rebuked the hecklers, telling 3AW:
The service was amazing this morning [but] those guys that were booing this morning and their partners, some of them … it was really disappointing to hear it. but to hear the people turn to him and tell him that wasn’t the place or the time to do it is what I was really proud of.
Matt Keogh claims he knows identity of person who led booing at dawn service
Veterans’ affairs minister Matt Keogh says the booing heard in Melbourne was “disgraceful”, and it’s understood that it was led by a neo-Nazi.
Politicians have all come out this morning condemning the behaviour. Keogh told ABC RN Breakfast:
What we saw occur there is frankly disgraceful. We know now that that booing was led by someone who’s a known neo-Nazi. And frankly, when we come together to commemorate on Anzac Day, we’re commemorating some of those soldiers who fell in a war that was fought against that sort of hateful ideology.
Asked how he knows a neo-Nazi was involved, Keogh says:
I’ve seen the public reporting of at least one of the names of one of the people that was involved in that and that person is known publicly for their engagement as in neo-Nazi activity in Australia.
Earlier, we heard reports that boos were heard in a crowd at the Melbourne dawn service, during the welcome to country.
Bunurong elder Uncle Mark Brown was welcoming attendees.
The Victorian premier, Jacinta Allan, responded to those reports on ABC radio this morning, saying, “It’s beyond disappointing”.
Both parties criticise booing at Anzac Day dawn service
The minister for veterans’ affairs, Matt Keogh, says booing heard at a dawn service in Melbourne was “concerning”.
Speaking to Sky News earlier, Keogh said that it wasn’t “mandatory” for people to attend services, but if they did, they needed to be respectful.
These are days of commemoration, they’re days of peaceful respect…
It’s expected that people who do attend Anzac day ceremonies do so respectfully and it’s concerning that some people didn’t show due respect to that service.
Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, who has previously served in the ADF, told Sky News he didn’t want to give the person responsible for the booing “any more air time”.
I don’t think that person deserves any more airtime than they’ve been given already … It’s one person, one person out of a nation that gathered [en] mass to acknowledge this day. This day isn’t about that person, it’s about those who served and sacrificed.
Luca Ittimani
‘Anzac spirit lives on in today’s soldiers,’ major general tells Sydney crowd
Staying with Sydney’s dawn service, the crowd heard from Major General Matt Burr, commander of the second division of Army reserves, commemorating the sacrifices of service men and women past and present:
Service before self is the straight line that runs through our history and binds us together …
I can tell you that the Anzac spirit lives on in today’s soldiers, sailors and aviators. The second division is tasked with defending Australia, and we stand ready to do just that.
Burr said defence forces had displayed the “Anzac legacy [of] courage, endurance and sacrifice” since world wars one and two in conflicts in the Malayan emergency, Korea, Vietnam, East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan and peacekeeping missions:
It is something we see when we deal with adversity. Australians embrace nation before self and serve with dignity and pride when our country is most in need.
Luca Ittimani
Thousands gather despite showers for Sydney’s dawn service
Thousands gathered for an Anzac Day service before dawn in Sydney’s Martin Place despite intermittent showers.
Veterans and members of the public wore raincoats and carried umbrellas at a 4:30am service bookended by rain to mark 110 years since Australian and New Zealand defence forces landed at Gallipoli.
The crowd stood in silence as defence personnel spoke and the Australian Army band played Abide With Me, God Save the King and the national anthems of New Zealand and Australia.
Labor frontbencher Tanya Plibersek and Liberal frontbencher Sussan Ley laid wreaths at Sydney’s Cenotaph on behalf of the prime minister and opposition leader, who were each attending other events around the country this morning.
Also in attendance were New South Wales’ premier, Chris Minns, the state opposition leader, Mark Speakman, and Sydney’s lord mayor, Clover Moore.
