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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Why the Voice referendum failed – and what the government hasn’t learned from it

Feb 3, 2026

Veterans for the proper recognition and commemoration of the Australian Wars

Feb 2, 2026

ABC Big Ideas 4 February features The Australian Wars book

Jan 30, 2026

Does anyone really know how much gallery space the War Memorial will have when the Big Build is finished?

Jan 30, 2026

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First Nations History

Queensland

Know Their Names (2025)

Lesley Synge

It concerns itself with the erasure of Aboriginal people from Australian history and examines the Queensland Government's Rewan Police Horse Breeding Station in the Central Highlands as a case study of erasure 1909-34.

Source

Book

First Nations History

Indigenous Affairs: Government

Lowitja: The authorised biography of Lowitja O'Donoghue (2020)

Stuart Rintoul

Lowitja O'Donoghue is a truly great Australian. She is arguably our nation's most recognised Indigenous woman. A powerful and unrelenting advocate for her people, an inspiration for many, a former Australian of the Year, she sat opposite Prime Minister Paul Keating in the first negotiations between an Australian government and Aboriginal people and changed the course of the nation.

Source

Book

First Nations History

Reaching through Time: Finding my Family’s Stories (2023)

Bostock, Shauna

A Bundjalung woman's journey to uncover her family history reveals the cataclysmic impact of colonisation on Aboriginal families, and how this ripples through to the present. It also shows how family research can bring a deeper understanding and healing of the wounds in our history.

Source

Book

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Commonwealth

Minister for Indigenous Australians Senator Malarndirri McCarthy

Biodata for Minister

Website

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

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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