Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I was going to do this last night as if I leave it too long it loses some of its meaning. I would like to talk about my experience on the Kokoda Track.

It is a very significant feature. At the commencement, we have produced a book which has some lovely photographs and if anyone wishes to have a look at it I would be happy to make it available to them.

I have now been there and experienced a little of what our brave and heroic soldiers, our diggers, endured in 1942-43. I came back having lost 5 kilograms and wearing some facial -

Mr Parkinson - It certainly improved your appearance.

Mr DEAN - Thank you, a lot of people have said that it covers up a lot. I will probably keep it for a little while.

Mr Wilkinson - I thought that you had gone back to the police force and gone undercover.

Mr DEAN - I must say that I experienced the same thing that David Parkin experienced, that is it has probably been the greatest life-changing experience I have had. It will change my life forever.

I was one of 17 trekkers who undertook the arduous task, an event that pales into insignificance when it is compared with what the diggers of the day in 1942 were confronted with. They were outnumbered, as some of you would be aware, by 6:1 by the Japanese fighting force, a well-trained and fanatical military who gave in under no circumstances. They confronted snipers while carrying heavy packs including firearms, ammunition and grenades. Many at the time were suffering from severe illnesses, malaria, dysentery, jungle typhoid and a number of other illnesses associated with hot, steamy, leech-infested and wet conditions.

For me to get there involved a long time of training. I spent about 14 to 16 weeks in hard training, walking 12 to 14 kilometres a day, day and night, carrying a 15 kg pack to get myself into a condition where I thought I would be able to complete this task. I always knew that physically I could probably do it; I was not too sure whether I could handle the mental side of it. My thoughts were right; physically I did well but mentally I struggled. Not only did I want to honour and retrace the steps of our heroic and brave diggers of the day, I wanted a challenge and an opportunity to raise much-needed financial support for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. At this point I want to commend Senator Guy Barnett, who was in the Chamber earlier today, for being the organiser of this event and his commitment to raising funds for JDRF, as it is known. He suffers from diabetes but he completed that task very well and without difficulty, ensuring that he kept up his blood levels et cetera.

I also served in Borneo and that is another reason I wanted to go there. Borneo has very similar jungle conditions and involved the Indonesian infiltration into Sarawak Borneo, or British Borneo at the time. Kokoda resembled what I had been through in Borneo and that was another reason I wanted to do this trek.

The group of diggers we were honouring saved Australia in 1942. Not too many people are aware of what they really did and accomplished. I am going to go into a little detail in relation to that. I get a bit emotional when I talk about it and I do not apologise for that. Sir William Slim, a former governor-general, summed up the performance of the Australians in Papua New Guinea when speaking at the opening of the Bomana War Cemetery at Port Moresby, and I quote:

'It was the Australian who broke the spell of Japanese invincibility on land and inflicted on that arrogant army its first defeat. Let Australians never forget this. It is, like Anzac, part of their noble tradition ? and these men made it.'

In 1942 PNG was also a territory of Australia, so this occurred on Australian soil as such. A lot of people are not aware of that. They did not gain their independence from Australia until, I think, 1972.

The track consists of 96 kilometres of gruelling conditions, unforgiving, unrelenting, demanding not only physical strength and strong willpower but also a mental and emotional strength that I had not experienced previously. The track is steep, almost vertical climbs lasting three hours at a time in wet, muddy and slippery conditions where stepping heights varied from a short foothold to steps requiring assistance of walking poles or being pulled or pushed up by somebody else. It is a very difficult track. We walked along spur lines with just enough room at the top for a track, which was slippery and wet, and it would fall away almost vertically by 200 to 300 metres on either side. It was a track that was treacherous, it was a track that you needed to be very careful on. We walked in amongst roots of trees the whole time, in and out of tree roots, across trees, across debris. It was not a straight walking track at all. We walked across makeshift bridges of saplings which were very slippery where a fall would have meant almost certain death, because the rivers were absolutely raging rivers full of rock and so on. So these were very dangerous situations where one had to be very careful. We had the support of porters and those porters were able to walk along a tight wire rope and carry three or four packs with them at the same time.

We walked through swamp areas, through gaiter-depth mud at intervals and in humid and very hot conditions. In 2007 three trekkers died on the track and so far this year two have died on that trek. There was a piece in the paper only last week or the week before where a trekker died trying to complete that trek.

Mr Wilkinson - Can I ask how they died?

Mr DEAN - Evacuations are common amongst trekkers. With another group we encountered broken legs, sprained ankles, dehydration, heart problems and unknown sicknesses. As for the ones who died, a 35 year old from Victoria had a heart attack which was brought on by dehydration. Others have died straight out from dehydration. One died from an unknown disease at that time, though I guess it is known now. In the main it has been heart attack and dehydration.

The days were long. We were starting at 5 a.m. for breakfast and ration packs and finishing about 5 p.m. most days, and into bed or onto the ground at about 7 p.m. Our nights were needed to recuperate so we could start the next day, but sleeping was not that easy. Mosquitos were generally rampant, with one marshy area in particular boasting sparrow-sized creatures - and they were. They appeared that big anyway. The leeches were similar in quantity and size.

While falls and spills were frequent, no serious injuries were sustained by any of our group, Madam President, and we were able to get through the 96 kilometres in pretty good shape. I think it was because of the training we all did to ensure we were able to complete it. I carried a full pack; others did not, others used porters. Our packs varied from about 13 to 17 kilos. We were drinking about 9 litres of water a day. We were drinking continuously to ensure we kept water in our systems.

We were wet for most of the trek. You just did not dry out. You would leave your clothes on, you would jump into rivers and leave them on and let them dry out on your body and most of us wore the same shorts, same clothes, for the whole eight days. We all smelt similarly, so it did not make any difference. It was certainly, as I said, an experience for all of us.

Mr Wing - You have given that up by now I take it?

Mr DEAN - Pardon?

Mr Wing - You have given that practice up?

Mr DEAN - I have given that practice up now. I brought them home in a sealed bag, I might add.

In all, 2 000 Australians were killed and over 3 500 were wounded; casualties due to malaria, jungle typhoid and dysentery were three times these numbers and we are talking about 1942.

It is said that about 200 Tasmanians were amongst the dead. On the Kokoda Track itself 625 Australians were killed. Many were killed in hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets and swords. This war was classified as brutal and has been classified as the most vicious encountered by Australians in World War II.

We had briefings where some of the heroic and barbaric acts occurred. We were told of diggers being tied to trees and used for live bayonet practice screaming for help, screaming to be relieved by being shot by some of their own troops, but unfortunately that could not occur. These briefings were given to us with emotion so you can imagine our response. There was not a dry eye amongst us. Most days that would happen.

Heroic acts were common amongst these troops. A lot were militia. They had really no training at all. They were plucked off farms and other businesses in Australia, taken to Papua New Guinea and were at the fighting front very quickly thereafter. Eighteen-year-old boys, many of them, just growing up, just out of school.

There are lots of stories. There is one story about this young fellow. The Australians were being overrun. Japanese were coming in in swarms and this young fellow stood up and ripped his dog tags off - and if the member for Rowallan was here he would know what I mean, you wear two dog tags - and threw them to his mate and said, 'Give one to my mum and make sure my girlfriend gets the other one'. At that he grabbed his Bren gun and said, 'I will hold these so and sos off while you make a withdrawal and get the injured out'. He said, 'I can hold them off for a time'. He did exactly that. He leapt out of his foxhole and confronted the Japanese and held them off for a period of time. He allowed them to escape; they got back; they did their withdrawal. They later found him. He was mutilated. They are able to say that he shot at least 30 Japanese in trying to hold them off.

There are other stories that I could go into. I do not want to take too much of your time but I want to quickly tell the story of two Bisset brothers. There were two brothers; ranking officers. Butch was at the front and again they were being overrun. Butch was a lieutenant and he stood up and he was giving orders to his men as to what they would do and what they should not do and he was shot through the stomach; three shots through the stomach. He was seriously wounded. He fell down and they called up his brother who was back at the rear at the time. They called forward his brother, Stan, who was also a ranking officer and they talked all night. Stan held his brother's hand all night; they reminisced about Victoria and their home and their mum and dad and they sang songs and did all of that as the life gradually ebbed out of him and he passed away early the next morning. There is now a memorial and a plaque on the track, on the stone on which he died. That is right in the middle of the track and we were able to take photographs of that.

Mr Wilkinson - That is described in the book Kokoda, too.

Mr DEAN - It is. There was not a dry eye amongst us. I have never cried so much before in my life, because this gets to you. To understand and feel what they went through. The agony that they would have suffered; it was just incredible.

There were other equally impacting briefings that we had. There was another one of Private Mitson, who I think features in some of these books as well. He was shot in two or three places and his ear was shot off. They were going to evacuate him and he said, 'No, I will not allow you to evacuate me - it will take 10 fuzzy wuzzy angels to do that. He said, 'I will get out myself'. The story goes, and it is a true story, that he crawled. He wrapped some bandage around his heel and he crawled for almost 10 kilometres until he passed out. He was then picked up and carried to a base where they were given medical attention. The irony of this story is that the rest of the group had to pull out; they left the injured behind, believing that they were safe but unfortunately the Japanese patrol found them and they were executed. So, he survived but then lost his life at the end of that.

Anzac Day service was an extremely emotional one for me and I will never experience another Anzac Day service like it. Bruce Scott, who is also a returned serviceman, and I were the only two veterans on this trek, so we had a part to play in that ceremony. It was a gut-wrenching experience, which impacted incredibly on all of us. There were a lot of village people present at the time. They flew in a padre to conduct the Anzac Day service with us.

Some of you would have heard about the fuzzy wuzzy angels. There was no doubt that Australia owes the fuzzy wuzzy angels so much. They say that the success of the Australians on that battlefield, or on that track, is simply due to the support and assistance they were given by the fuzzy wuzzy angels. There are still some of them living and we met two of them while I was away. One was 102 years old and I think the other one is about 103 or 104 now. They are great people to talk to. They talk pidgin English. You can talk to them. They are just incredible people. Australia has never ever properly recognized those people for what they did. It is now being talked about, but they need to do it before it is too late, otherwise they will not be here, unfortunately, to realise what is going on.

We also scattered the ashes of two veterans of the track. One was the ashes of a Mr Rudd. We scattered those at a place called Brigade Hill, which was the site of an extremely ferocious battle where Australians lost a lot, as did the Japanese. So we spread those ashes. Ian Norton is an alderman at the Launceston City Council, and we spread the ashes of his father who was also a veteran of that track. We spread those ashes at Ishrana, which is a place where the fiercest battle of all took place and I think Australia had about 300 deaths on that one site at Ishrana. There were 625 killed in total, but 300 at Ishrana.

It is now the site of a wonderful memorial. There are plaques there. The Australian Government have spent millions and millions of dollars on it to ensure that it is enshrined forever and a place where we can remember what our Australian soldiers did.

On 14 August 2002 at the address for the dedication of the Ishrana Memorial on PNG, the Prime Minister of the time, the Honourable John Howard, MP, said this, and I quote:

'And the true significance of what was achieved here at Ishrana and in other battles on the Kokoda Track was the courage, the commitment, the professionalism and the raw love of country of the Australians.

The Australian Army inflicted the first defeat on land of the Japanese Imperial Army. To their everlasting honour and credit those defeats injected heart and hope into an Australian population that grew increasingly worried about the likelihood of direct and overwhelming invasion of the Australian mainland.'

You would recall at that stage there had been a bombing of Darwin and I think about 300 Australians lost their lives in the bombing. Some submarines had come into Sydney Harbour, so things were happening and, very clearly, the Japanese were making their way to Australia.

You pass through a number of villages whilst you are walking through this track, and they are very primitive indeed. Their homes have one room. It is simply thrown together, very temporary accommodation and they all have a fire on the floor in amongst the stones. There are no chimneys in the places, the smoke just wafts up all around the place and we went into some of those homes. The people wanted to talk to us and they wanted us to be a part them. We looked forward to getting into the villages because of the fresh fruit that we were given in all of those villages. It kept us going. The fresh fruit was absolutely wonderful. We also had corn, pastries and boiled potatoes in one place.

There are lots of other things I could talk about. The toilets were absolutely gross; they are called wind houses. There was an article in the newspaper yesterday or the day before about the Australian Government's intention to spend a lot of money putting loos in along that track to preserve it.

I wrote a letter to the Examiner and it was published, for which I was grateful. I said in that letter that there are families here now who had veterans who served on the Kokoda Track who lost everything that they had and everybody that they had. They have every reason to feel extremely proud of what their son or brother accomplished on the Kokoda Track. They were absolute heroes in the greatest sense of the word. We owe to the diggers what Australia is today, there is no doubt about that. It was an incredible feat, and I want to recognise that.

The Bomana Cemetery I want to mention very briefly, in concluding. There are over 3 000 Australian graves at the Bomana Cemetery. It is an immaculately set out cemetery and the gravestones are absolutely pristine and are set out in order. But when looking around the headstones you cannot but cry. You read inscriptions on them, '18 year old, so and so, only son of so and so.' It tears you apart. Because there was no DNA then and they were ripped to pieces, many of the bodies are just unknown Australian soldiers who died on such and such a day. It is quite horrific. Australia spends, I think, around $15 million to $16 million a year on retaining the cemetery, on the track and all the other things that are occurring in Papua New Guinea in remembrance and recognition of what our diggers achieved over there. It is an incredible situation.

I want to recognise those people who gave support to us and to juvenile diabetes. This is not done to embarrass anybody but I want to read the names of those people: the Honourable Don Wing; Mr Kim Booth MP; Alderman Ian Norton from the Launceston City Council; Madam President, the Honourable Will Hodgman MP; Alderman Frank Nott and Mrs Joan Nott; Dr Don Rose and Dr Glen Richardson. I expect others may not have received the information I sent out as well, but I do thank those members for their support. It will go a long way to helping the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation which is researching this disease which we know is on the increase.

In conclusion, I want to read a letter. I tried to do this the other night and had some difficulty with it, but I will try again now. It is in relation to my uncle who was a veteran and served on the Kokoda track. I will read a couple of pieces from a letter that he wrote to his mother while he was on the track. It is fairly gruesome but I will just stick to a couple of passages:

'I have been lucky and that is something I would never believe before but lucky. I must be for I crawled through the dirtiest stinking hell there is on this earth or anywhere else, seen my pals and what pals blown to bits, lived for weeks on mud. Yes, believe it or not on human flesh, manfern roots are a tasty meal if you can cook them. I've layed for hours, days it seems, in a mud hole with a leaf over my face with death sitting on the other side of the hole. My mate went mad through that and I spent a fortnight in hospital, which I don't know anything about. I get hot and cold all over, even now when I think about it.'

I am quoting from his letter, there are some errors in it and I am quoting it as it was written:

'I've swore and cursed the time I got my eye hurt but that was the only thing which made it possible for me to write this letter. One day, or late evening I should say, we all got blew up. (Five all told.) A palm fell across me with the results I went to sleep in a hurry. When I woke up a couple of stinking - and when I say stinking I mean stinking, you can smell them a hundred yards off - Japs were poking around. They stuck a knife into one bloke because he showed signs of being alive and when they came to me, well as I could take my trousers off, I later got a new pair given to me - one of them lifted the lid of my bad eye (why he did that instead of using his knife no-one will ever know) and gave a grunt, which I have learnt to mean dead and then they left me.'

Another part in that letter:

'I've often wondered where Winter was' -

that is my father -

'How I wish I was in Libya where they do fight clean. I'm not frightened to die but I am frightened the Japs will capture me, for the worst you have ever heard about the Japs is not half of what they really are like and if after this is all over and the Australian Gov offered to make peace with them I'll be among the first to offer to cut the Prime Minister's throat.'

Thank you very much for listening, Madam President. This is something I thought I should put on record. I would commend the walk to members if they are able to do it and if they have the time to do it. We each paid about $7 000 from our own pockets to be part of it, but it was money well spent and went to raising money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I was very happy to spend that money. We raised $150 000-odd recently and I am not sure how much more we have raised since then, but we are hoping to get to $200 000.