THE HON DAN TEHAN MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR WANNON
INVERLEIGH AND DISTRICT RSL SUB-BRANCH INC, REMEMBRANCE DAY 2025
11 November 2025
E&OE……………………………………
Can I start by saying what a great honour it is to be here this morning and can I thank you all for attending. Because it is so incredibly important that we remember the service and sacrifice that has taken place on our behalf so that we can enjoy the freedoms and liberties that we do today.
Can I please get you all to acknowledge all those who are here who have served our nation, and all those who are here who are currently serving our nation, because it is their service, both in the past and now, which helps protect us into the future.
Think about the extraordinary legacy of those who served in the First World War. Those 143 from this area who volunteered to go and fight on foreign soils that they had no idea of what they were going to be fighting on that terrain, whether it be at Gallipoli or on the Somme.
I had the great honour of being the Veterans Affairs Minister during our Centenary of Anzac period. And just to give you an example of what these young men went through, I had the honour of giving the address at Fromelles where a lot of those who served at Gallipoli then headed to the Somme. At Fromelles, Australian volunteers faced for the first time in war, machine guns.
The Germans had developed the technology that we, at that stage, in the West, didn't have. And in 24 hours, in a 24-hour period, young Australians tried to take the ground that the Germans had reinforced with those machine guns. And 2,000 of them were either wounded or killed in a 24-hour period.
Now, you put that in the perspective of a town like Inverleigh. Basically, everyone wiped off the face of the earth.
And yet they were prepared, wave after wave, to do what they saw as their duty. Now, it's hard for us to comprehend why they would do it, but when you think about it, you begin to understand.
They knew what a wonderful town and wonderful districts that they came from. They knew what the liberties that they enjoyed were like. They knew that a volunteer spirit can overcome almost everything, and most importantly, they knew that that volunteer ethos would remain with the towns and the districts and the country that they had come from.
So on this Armistice Day, which now of course, we call Remembrance Day, so we remember all those who have fought on our behalf, and those 102,000 who are remembered at the War Memorial, we should stop, pause and give thanks, because if it wasn't for that service, if it wasn't for that dedication, if it wasn't for that volunteering ethos, we would not be here today remembering them and also remembering the wonderful legacy that they have left us with.
Lest we forget.
