Government House Queensland
Nurses Memorial Candlelight Vigil 2024
Representing the Premier and Minister for Health, Mental Health & Ambulance Services and Minister for Women, Assistant Minister for Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works, Ms Ali King MP; representing the Leader of the Opposition, Member for Moggill, Dr Christian Rowan MP; representing the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Councillor for Central Ward, Councillor Vicki Howard; Queensland’s Chief Nursing Officer, Adjunct Professor Shelley Nowlan; Centaur Memorial Fund for Nurses, President Colonel Julie Finucane OAM and Vice-President, Dr Judith Dean; President of the Defence Service Nurses RSL Sub Branch Queensland, Dr Ann Bramwell; distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen.
I begin by acknowledging the original custodians of the lands around Brisbane, the Turrbal and Jagera people, pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and to all First Nations people.
We gather again as we gather each year in this sacred place, beside this proud and poignant monument in a quiet vigil of deep regard and honour.
The 14th of May this year marks 81 years since the sinking of AHS Centaur just 30 nautical miles off the southern tip of Moreton Island.
This was war on our doorstep, it was the very worst of war, and it was in our midst – in Queensland’s coastal waters. The sinking was a tragedy and it was an atrocity and it touched Australia like no other wartime event since Gallipoli.
Only three years after the end of the war, when the country was still reeling from the loss of life and the massive blow to our economy and standard of living, Australians donated 48,000 pounds to the Centaur Memorial Fund – the equivalent of more than 3.5 million dollars in today’s money. The loss of the Centaur symbolised for Australians, the ultimate tragedy of war.
Australian Military nurses have served in every conflict since the Boer War. At Messines Ridge in the Great War, 20 nurses of the 2nd Casualty Clearing Station treated upwards of 2,800 wounded soldiers in the first 18 hours of the Push…all while under fire.
In World War Two, 5,000 nurses served in every theatre of war where Australians soldiers fought. Many were captured and many of those, were treated appallingly.
Seventy-eight Nurses never came home and many, many more bore the ‘scars of war’ along with the returning soldiers.
In Vietnam, more than 3,000 Aussie soldiers were wounded, with many passing through the skilled and caring hands of the group of all-volunteer Australian nursing sisters.
The lives of many of those diggers were saved by other specialist nurses who undertook a staggering 106 aero-medical evacuations.
Where the troops have gone, so too have the nurses of the ADF. Since 1990 alone, military nurses of the Navy the Army and the Air Force have deployed on six combat operations; four Peacekeeping undertakings and nine Humanitarian missions.
Dr Narelle Biederman of the College of Healthcare Sciences at James Cook University wrote in a Journal article about Australian Military nursing from ANZAC to Now:
“The ghosts of our nursing ancestors do continue to walk amongst us, and if we stop to listen, we can hear their voices guiding our practice now and into the future.”
I would like to imagine that in the cool evening hush of this vigil, that those spirits are here. And they walk among us, as we honour their legacy of service.
We will remember them.
Lest we Forget.