Defending Country

What’s missing here?

While the Australian War Memorial’s $550m building program is well advanced (with lots of new concrete and gravel), the Memorial has been equivocal on how it intends to properly recognise and commemorate the Australian Frontier Wars.

Defending Country applies to all who have fought for Australia or parts of it. It applies just as much to First Australians (Arrernte, Noongar, Wiradjuri, and others), defending their Country on Country (and dying on Country), as it does to uniformed Australians fighting our overseas wars.

For an expanded explanation of Defending Country, link here.

As a veteran I can’t see how my service was somehow more deserving of being commemorated than that of First Australians warriors who fought bravely against superior forces. (Noel Turnbull, 104 Field Battery, Vietnam, 1968-69)

Who we are About Defending Country …

About the Defending Country Campaign …FAQs

Read why the Australian Frontier Wars are important to Australia and Australians. In summary:

Australia is built on the Frontier Wars.
The Frontier Wars killed tens of thousands of Australians.
Intergenerational trauma cannot be left in the silence.
What we commemorate shows what we regard as important.
We need to close the Commemoration Gap.

Australia was fought for in an endless war of little, cruel battles. (David Marr, Killing for Country, 2023, p. 131)

Why the Australian Frontier Wars are important …The role of the Australian War Memorial …

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The Australian Wars is an important new book being published in November

Aug 14, 2025

25 years of Garma: PM's speech, Closing the Gap (not)

Aug 7, 2025

The settler-invaders had a code for it: Guardian Australia's series The Descendants

Aug 6, 2025

Leap into the Great Australian Silence: Paul Daley’s new novel reviewed

Aug 4, 2025

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First Nations History

Frontier Wars

First Weapons (2023)

Curtis, Dena and Darren Dale, Producers; Blackfella Films and Inkey Media

Phil Breslin describes and shows production of Indigenous weapons (ABC TV, six episodes, July-August 2023)

Source

TV Program

Frontier Wars

First Nations History

Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience (c. 2003)

Attwood, Bain and SG Foster, ed.

Based on a forum held at the National Museum in Canberra c. 2003 this book presents a series of essays by leading contributors on the subject of conflict between Aborigines and settlers.

Source

Book

Frontier Wars

Northern Territory

Hidden Histories: Black Stories from Victoria River Downs, Humbert River and Wave Hill Stations (1991)

Deborah Bird Rose

Contact history based on Aboriginal oral accounts; prehistory, traditional culture and territorial groupings; Captain Cook mythology and contradictions of early settlement; case studies of killings; role of police and police trackers; destruction of Karangpurru and Nyiwanawu culture; Humbert River Mudbura Aboriginal Reserve; Aboriginal perception of social justice; wages and unionism; Vesteys and labour issues; effects of Welfare policies; station violence, interpersonal relations and sexual conflict; working lives on stations; demographic estimates; the Wave Hill strike (1966); and more.

Source

Book

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First Nations, Uluru Statement, Voice campaign

Richard J. Frankland

Richard Frankland is a Gunditjmara man who is a singer, songwriter, author, poet and film maker. He previously worked as a soldier, a fisherman and a field officer to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. His songs, stories and language depict humanistic issues relevant to the First Nation experience from past and present.

Website

First Nations, Uluru Statement, Voice campaign

Deakin University: Nikeri Institute: Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab

Individually and in groups we conduct research projects across many disciplines to inform innovative knowledge and solutions designed to return all human beings to their ecological niche as a custodial species embedded in regenerative landscapes.

Website

Commonwealth

Racism. It Stops with Me.

The website (run by the Human Rights Commission) provides information on the campaign and resources to support learning about and action against racism. This website also hosts the Workplace Cultural Diversity Tool, a free, online, confidential self-assessment tool for organisations seeking to strengthen their approach to cultural diversity and anti-racism in the workplace. The Racism. It Stops With Me campaign invites us to ask ourselves important questions about the role of racism in shaping society, the way we see ourselves and how we interact with one another.

Website

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Defending Country thanks these distinguished Australians for agreeing to be Patrons of our website and project. While each of them supports the objectives of the Defending Country campaign, they do not necessarily endorse every post or every word on the defendingcountry.au website and do not necessarily agree with each other on everything.

Patron

Thomas Mayo

Thomas Mayo is a Kaurareg Aboriginal and Kalkalgal, Erubamle Torres Strait Islander man. He is the …

Patron

Clare Wright

Professor Clare Wright OAM is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster who has worked in …

Patron

Henry Reynolds

Professor Henry Reynolds of the University of Tasmania is Australia’s leading historian of the …

Patron

Megan Davis

Professor Megan Davis AC is Co-chairof the Uluru Dialogue and was a leading campaigner for the YES …

Wominjeka! Yumalundi!^*

RECOGNISING THE AUSTRALIAN WARS

Defending Country