22nd Anniversary of the Unveiling of the Australian Chinese Ex-services Monument - Commemorative Service
Sunday, 23 March 2025
Australian Chinese Ex-services Monument, Sydney
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC
Bujari gamarruwa, Diyn Babana Gamarada Gadigal Ngura
In greeting you in the language of this land’s Traditional Owners, the Gadigal of the Eora Nation, on Gadigal Country, I pay my respects to Gadigal Elders, past, present and emerging, and to the Elders of all lands across NSW from which Chinese Australians have served.
It is an honour to join you today to mark the 22nd anniversary of the unveiling of the Australian Chinese Ex-services Monument, here in Dixon Street, in the heart of Sydney’s Chinese community. It is a particular honour as this is the inaugural commemorative event since the formation of the Australian Chinese Ex-Services Association last year, and the first such public commemoration of Chinese Australian service since the Monument was unveiled in 2003.
Memorials have a special place in our community. A public commemoration, with its ceremony, invites us, in the words of Cecile Fabre from Oxford University: to give testimony to the “moral significance of all human beings.”[1] Former Prime Minister Paul Keating alluded to this in 1992 when he said: “We cannot make good [the] hurt any more than we can undo war itself. But, by this memorial, we can make good the memory.”[2]
The story of this Monument is a story of memory and of community. Today, Australians recognise all servicemen and women who played a vital role in protecting and securing our nation’s future and the freedoms we cherish. That has not always been the case.
In the 1990s, a group of Australian Chinese ex-servicemen - Tom Cheong, Lionel Nomchong, Bob Lee Dow, Colin Young, Les Kum Yew and Bo Liu came together, to establish the predecessor organisation to the Australian Chinese Ex-Services Association, the Australian Chinese Ex-Services National Reunion.
It was their idea to create a peaceful monument of significance and symbolism here, amid the vibrant community of Chinatown. The aim was to recognise the service and the sacrifice of “Australians of Chinese heritage who served with pride, courage and distinction in the Australian Defence Forces and Merchant Navy during the Boer War, World Wars One and Two, in Malaya, Korea and Vietnam, and those serving today.”[3]
The project was supported by the then Premier Bob Carr and Upper House Member and Parliamentary Secretary, the Honourable Henry Tsang, and by local government and agencies. It was funded by the Commonwealth and NSW Governments, the RSL, local Chinese community groups and communities, and co-designed, with the input of Chinese Australian architects and the Chinese community.
Research and interviews were undertaken by historian Diana Giese and Gilbert Jan, to document the service of Chinese Australians, with the support of RSL President Rusty Priest, who recognised this memorial was long overdue.
Dedicated by the NSW Government on Remembrance Day 2002, in the 30th anniversary year of Australia establishing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, the Monument was unveiled on 14 March 2003 by the then Deputy Premier, Andrew Refshauge.
Ten metres high, the 380 connected light rods that spiral around the central column are symbolic of the eternal flow of water, and the Chinese belief that relationships of reciprocity do not end with death.
Over 500 names are recorded on this memorial. It includes servicemen like Private Arthur Quong Tart, son of Quong Tart, who established the well-known Tea Rooms in then newly built Queen Victoria building, near here, on George Street. During the Battle of Pozieres, on the Western Front, the battle that saw some of the worst fighting of the First World War, he was buried four times as a result of exploding shells, each time dug out by his mates, before being medically evacuated with severe shell shock.
It also includes Sydney-born servicewoman Kathleen Quan Mane, the youngest of five daughters of an Australian-born Chinese mother and Cantonese father who came to Australia in the 1900s. Kathleen served as a decoder in the Australian Air Force during the Second World War.
As reported to the State Parliament, RAAF wireless air gunner, and Reunion President Tom Cheong, reflected with great pride on the Monument’s unveiling, saying:
“Nearly 62 years to the day, as an 18-year-old Chinese Australian, during the bombing of Darwin, I never envisaged that one day, I, along with fellow Chinese Australians, who willingly served our country against enemy forces, would be given public recognition for our commitment and loyalty.”[4]
Hope Gum-Ling, who served in the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service, simply remarked: “This is finally the recognition they deserve.”[5]
On this 22nd Anniversary of the unveiling of the Memorial, we acknowledge: “Their service, Our heritage”[6] - those Australians of Chinese descent who have defended our nation and who continue to protect our freedoms.
We thank the Australian Chinese Ex-Services Association: its President, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Tsang; Vice President, Tom Galluzzo, the grandson of Tom Cheong, and the Committee whose members are current serving members of the Australian Defence Force for this inaugural commemorative service.
Lest we forget
[1] Cecile Fabre, Oxford University, Professor of Philosophy, Author of Cosmopolitan Peace.
This concept - that there are moral reasons for commemoration - is presented in ‘Remembering Wars: Lest We Forget’ podcast in The Philosopher’s Zone on Radio National:
[2] Paul Keating, Speech at the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial Dedication Ceremony, 1992:
https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00008687.pdf
[3] Monument Inscription
[4] https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/hansard/Pages/HansardResult.aspx
[5] ibid
[6] Monument Inscription.