Thursday, 1 August 2024

Kokoda Track

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (10:56): I rise today to talk about my nine-day Kokoda trek that I undertook with my good mate the member for Gippsland East. We set off from Kokoda and walked to Owers Corner, some 130 kilometres, with both students and adults. The Marsh/Tierney scholarship that we set up for my electorate in Morwell allowed us to take a 16-year-old girl called Amelia van Vliet from Morwell, and what an incredible story she had to tell. In an emotional journey Amelia got to complete the trek, the same trek that unfortunately took the life of her father 15 years earlier when he was killed along with other trekkers when the light plane they were in crashed into the side of the mountain over at Kokoda. With the help of the member for Gippsland East we were able to visit the Australian embassy in Port Moresby, where there is a memorial with Amelia’s dad’s name on it. We also got to visit another memorial with his name on it at the Kokoda hospital before being able to stop on the side of a mountain and being able to still see the site, some 15 years later, of the actual plane crash. To be able to share this experience with Amelia and our group, as well as pay respects to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives on Kokoda so we can enjoy the way we live our life now, was certainly very humbling, emotional and something I will never forget or take for granted.