Another puzzle
Corporate Plans are submitted annually by departments and agencies in accordance with the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013 (PGPA Act). Part 1 of this brief series analysed the War Memorial's Corporate Plans 2023-2027 and 2024-2028 and its Strategic Plan 2023-2028.
Those Plans are pdfs hanging off the War Memorial's Corporate Documents website page. While the Memorial usually spells out dates in such documents, e.g. 2024-2028, we'll settle for shorthand, e.g. 24-28.
This post looks at what Corporate Plan 24-28 and Strategic Plan 23-28 say about the Memorial's relationship with First Nations people, given the Memorial Council decision of 19 August 2022 for 'a broader and deeper depiction and presentation of the violence perpetrated against Indigenous Australians' (extract of Council Minutes below)*.
The evidence in Corporate Plan 24-28 suggests there is very little interest in these matters at the Memorial in 2024:
the word 'Indigenous' appears just once in the document, in reference to the work of the Memorial's Indigenous Liaison Officer (page 15);
the words 'frontier conflict' or 'Frontier Wars' or 'frontier violence' appear not at all;
the words on page 16 under 'Corporate Priority' ('Ensure the ongoing relevance of the Memorial’s vision and mission to the nation') might have included a mention of First Nations people but do not;
the chart on page 17 does not include 'First Nations' or similar as a 'Key Stakeholder' of the Memorial, though it does include these 11 stakeholders: Australian Defence Force; Ex Service Associations; Federal Government; Department of Veterans' Affairs; Council Staff Volunteers; ACT Government; Visitors (onsite/online); Schools/Education (onsite/online); Memorial Supporters (Public, Corporate, Philanthropic); Cultural Sector; Tourism Sector.
Retreat
The Memorial has retreated even from the equivocal Council decision of 19 August 2022.* Lest We Forget indeed. There is an increasing gap between promise and reality.
Strategic Plan 23-28 is an attractively-presented 12 page document, complete with individual photographs of the then members of the Memorial Council. Strategic Plans are not a requirement of the PGPA Act but the Memorial clearly put a lot of effort into this one. It bears the publication date 28 April 2023, only a few months after Kim Beazley became Chair of the Memorial Council and expressed the need for change in the Memorial's treatment of the Australian Frontier Wars. (An example from April 2023.)
Strategic Plan 23-28 included four ‘Strategic Pillars’, the first of which was ‘Commemorate, reflect and understand Australian experiences of war and service’. Hanging from that pillar were four dot points. The third dot point read, ‘Advancing the public’s understanding of military history and its connection to the present’ (emphasis added). The fourth dot point read, ‘Expanding and deepening our collection, gallery displays, research and online content relating to Australia’s frontier violence’ (emphasis added).
Including the words ‘Australia's frontier violence’ in Strategic Plan 23-28 was an advance. But those words were in a separate dot point from the one referring to 'military history'. Apparently, the Memorial did not see frontier violence as part of our military history, even though it led to the deaths of perhaps 100 000 people.
Further, ‘Australia's frontier violence’ was not given a ‘connection to the present’. So much for the intergenerational trauma visited upon today's First Nations Australians by that violence. 'Military history' had a connection to the present, presumably because military people and others involved suffered trauma later. 'Australia's frontier violence' was allowed no such connection.
There had been some promise of change, however. Page 4 of the paper put to the Memorial Council on 17 March 2023 (Ref. No. 2023-24-10) included this sentence: 'The Corporate Plan 2024-2025 will be amended to reflect the strategic pillars and priorities contained in the Strategic Plan'.
That sentence was pretty much as far as it got. The amending certainly didn't happen in relation to 'Australia's frontier violence' in that fourth dot point: as noted above, those words are simply not present in Corporate Plan 24-25. The remaining 'strategic pillars and priorities' in Strategic Plan 23-28 were mostly unremarkable corporate-speak which would have been easily rolled into the later corporate-speak of Corporate Plan 24-25.
The main point is that 'Australia's frontier violence' - after clinging for a while to the first pillar of that glossy Strategic Plan - slipped again from view in the Corporate Plan.
That slipping from view says a lot about how the Memorial rolls in Spring 2024. Words matter. Even in documents that agencies throw together to meet a statutory obligation or to make a public relations effort.
We will print any response the Memorial wishes to make to this post, taking account of our Moderation policy.
Defending Country supports the efforts of anyone associated with the Memorial, from the Council Chair and the refreshed Council down, to properly recognise and commemorate the Australian (Frontier) Wars.
*The words of that decision (page 3):
It was agreed that Frontier Violence perpetrated against Aboriginal Australians would, as in the previous Colonial Galleries, continue to be presented in the new Pre-1914 galleries.
It would provide a broader and deeper depiction and presentation of the violence perpetrated against Indigenous Australians.
Wherever possible it would relate to and inform, subsequent Indigenous military service to Australia, providing a context for that service.
The gallery will inform visitors of the significant institutions whose charter it is to tell the full story of Frontier Violence.
The gallery will be developed in full consultation with the Council throughout its development.
Picture credit: Australian War Memorial from the south-east c. 1941 (AWM)
Part 1 of this series: Word Play.
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