Victoria Cross For Australia - Proposed Retrospective Awards

Proposed Retrospective Awards

On 3 April 2001, Senator Chris Schacht, then a member of the Australian Senate, gave notice that on the next day of sitting he would introduce the Award of Victoria Cross for Australia Bill 2001 to award the Victoria Cross for Australia to certain persons. The next sitting day, 4 April 2001, Senator Schacht introduced the bill for three members of the Australian forces to be awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia. The bill was read a first time and Senator Schacht gave his Second Reading Speech in which he said it could be argued that an Act conferring a Victoria Cross for Australia may be beyond the legislative power of the Parliament but he believed that the "naval and military defence of the Commonwealth" power under section 51(vi) of the Constitution gave the Parliament authority to legislate with respect to honours and awards. In accordance with normal procedure the debate was then adjourned. On 1 June 2001, Sid Sidebottom, the Member for Braddon introduced the Defence Act Amendment (Victoria Cross) Bill 2001. The Bill was similar to the Senate bill and Sidebottom also believed that the Parliament had power under section 51(vi) of the Constitution. Neither bill was again debated before the 2001 Australian federal election. Both Senator Schacht and Mr Sidebottom were members of the Australian Labor Party, then in opposition and the issue was included by the then opposition leader Kim Beazley in his campaign in the following General Election. The awards were intended "to raise the profile and recognition of three ordinary Australians, who displayed outstanding bravery."

The awards were to be made posthumously to John Simpson Kirkpatrick ("Simpson"), Albert Cleary and Teddy Sheean for their actions in the First and Second World Wars. Simpson's story has become an Australian legend. He was a stretcher bearer with the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance, Australian Army Medical Corps at Gallipoli during the First World War. He landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915 and, on that first night, took a donkey and began carrying wounded from the battle line to the beach for evacuation. He continued this work for three and a half weeks, often under fire, until he was killed. However, in 1919, King George V decreed that no more operational awards would be made for the recently concluded war.

In 1965, a campaign to award the Victoria Cross to Simpson resulted in his image with a donkey appearing on the obverse of the Anzac Commemorative Medallion that was announced in 1966 and first issued in 1967. Following the 2007 Australian federal election the Labor party came to power and there was speculation that the 2001 bills may be reintroduced. Historians such as Anthony Staunton, writing in the Australian Journal of Military History, have opined that the Victoria Cross for Australia should not be awarded retrospectively. It was announced on 13 April 2011 that 13 cases of valour would be examined posthumously by the Australian government's Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal. It will first debate "the eligibility of the 13 to receive the Victoria Cross, the Victoria Cross for Australia or other forms of recognition." It will then move on to discuss the individual cases.