- From: The Australian
- October 23, 2013
TURKEY has rejected an Australian request to increase the number of Australians and New Zealanders visiting Gallipoli for the 100th anniversary of the Anzac landings.
The Turks insist that for safety reasons no more than 10,500 Australians and New Zealanders may attend the commemoration on April 25, 2015. And the Abbott government will press on with the plan for a national ballot to allocate those places to those who want to attend.
When the ballot plan was announced by the Labor government last year, battlefield tour operators and some of those who had booked places reacted angrily to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ plan to limit the number able to attend the dawn service. The Coalition undertook to review the planning for the centenary if it won government.
The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Centenary of Anzac, Michael Ronaldson, said he had discussed the numbers with the Turkish government. “It’s been made very clear to me . . . that they view 10,500 as the maximum figure. They are our hosts. They are very generous hosts and if that’s the figure they believe is appropriate then that’s the figure we will work on.”
He said he would make announcements about the ballot process in the next month. The previous government’s estimates of the numbers of people eligible for the various categories in the ballot were reasonable.
But large numbers of Australians wanted to make the journey and there had to be a way to ensure that those who entered the ballot actually intended to go, Senator Ronaldson said.
“It’s important that people have thought long and hard about whether they want to go, whether they can go and whether they will go,” he said.
To take some of the pressure off the anniversary of the Anzac landing, Senator Ronaldson is considering a proposal for commemoration ceremonies marking other key dates.
“I’m looking at how we might be able to have some smaller, but no less important for the families involved, commemorative activities through the campaign.”
In April, former defence force chief Angus Houston told The Australian that being at Gallipoli in August for the anniversaries of the battles such as Lone Pine and The Nek or the evacuation would give visitors the space to contemplate the Anzac sacrifice without battling the crowds expected to mark the 100th anniversary of the landing.
Mr Houston, who headed the inquiry into how the Gallipoli centenary should be commemorated, said it could be dangerous to allow unlimited numbers to visit. “I think if you just have a free-for-all, it will be a shambles. The simple fact is that the site will not take more than 10,500 people,” he said.
He said it might be possible to have a small team including a chaplain and a bugler at Gallipoli to carry out services daily during the anniversary period.
Senator Ronaldson said a key priority for him as minister would be caring for those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq and other conflicts.
He said he wanted the next generation of Australians to come out of the Anzac commemorative period with a clear understanding of a century of sacrifice, from World War I to Afghanistan, knowing where their forebears fought, when they fought and the values they were fighting to defend, as well as what 102,000 names on the Australian War Memorial meant.
via Turkey rejects more for Gallipoli 100th | The Australian.
- From: The Australian
- October 23, 2013
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