THE WAR TO END ALL WARS: OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO THOSE WHO DIED

7 November 2014
Speech

A public forum to consider Australia’s World War I commemoration and whether it pays appropriate respect to those who died believing in a better world.

World War I brought death to approximately 61,000 Australians and shattered the lives of countless others. Globally, a generation was virtually lost.
The legacy of the war continues to this day. A century on, does our commemoration stop short of asking the hard questions such as how such a cataclysmic event could occur, what we learnt from it and whether that responsibility to learn has been lost amid the flag-waving?

The forum was organised by:
  • Medical Association for Prevention of War
  • Honest History
  • Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
  • A Chorus of Women
  • UN Association of Australia
  • Anzac eve 2015 peace vigil
  • Quaker Conversations  “Anzac: Lessons Learned”
  • International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Australia
  • The Campaign for an Iraq War Inquiry, and its major project Australians for War Powers Reform.