Occasional Address: National Police Remembrance Day Service
Speech by Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty APM
Thursday 29 September 2005
St Christopher's Cathedral Manuka, ACT
(This is an edited transcript)
Your Excellencies, the Governor-General and Mrs Jeffery; the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Chris Ellison; ACT Minister for Police and Emergency Services John Hargreaves, Senators and other Members of Parliament; General Da'i Bachtiar the former Kapolri of the Indonesian National Police who is here with us today; Air Marshal Angus Houston the Chief of the Defence Force.
We also have a number of former Commissioners here today including Major-General Ron Grey and the widow of Commissioner Peter McAulay, Avril Holdstock. Members of the diplomatic community as well as policing colleagues from Australasia and the South-West Pacific.
Welcome to you all.
If I could commence this address by recognising the Colour Party in the Parade who are assembled out the front in the rain. Thank you very much for your efforts this morning, but also to the Chaplains who have had an extraordinary year supporting the Australian Federal Police and the work we have done not only nationally, but internationally.
Today is about people who give up their lives in order to serve their community. That happens in many occupations. It happens in the Defence Forces, it happens in other emergency services, it happens in civilian life.
But today is the one day of the year that we remember those police officers who have given up their lives in order to protect their communities, which is part of their oath of office.
Today with us we also have the families and the friends of the police who have died. We have some of the work colleagues of the police who have died.
There is no greater commitment that a family can give than to live through the sacrifice of having lost one of their loved ones for a policing organisation but also for the community.
So as well as being a day when we remember those who have died, today is also a day when we remember those left behind, who carry the legacy of losing a loved one for the rest of their lives.
In the Australasian/South-West Pacific region in the past 12 months we have had 20 police lose their lives.
And it is worth reflecting that the Indonesian National Police lost 1418 members in the tsunami last December, and we are pleased to have General Da'i Bachtiar with us at this service today.
But as I say, in our region we lost 20 police, the majority of those police were killed on duty in Papua New Guinea, and here at the AFP we obviously lost one of our own officers in the past 12 months, Adam Dunning.
We also lost an Assistant Superintendent who was sworn in as a Special Constable from Fiji Police to the AFP, Superintendent Asaeli Tamanitoakula. Asaeli was working with us in the International Deployment Group ready to be deployed to the Solomon Islands and he was training with us here in Canberra when he lost his life.
Locally, the NSW Police Constable Graeme John Lees, who was stationed at Queanbeyan lost his life in the last 12 months.
Later in the service, the Chief Police Officer, Audrey Fagan, will read out the names of all the police in the South-West Pacific region who also lost their lives.
This ceremony has been going for some 17 years now. In that time 140 police have lost their lives in the course of their duties.
On this day next year, we will unveil the National Police Memorial. Five years ago when I became Commissioner, and coincidentally Senator Chris Ellison became our Minister, there was a commitment from previous Commissioners to try and get a national memorial.
Joining with the Police Federation and all the jurisdictions from around Australia as well as the Commonwealth Government, that Memorial is now a reality and this time next year we will hold this ceremony at that Memorial.
Towards the end of this service there will be a video display of some of the work our people have been doing in the last 12 months and you will see images of the memorial design.
What we have achieved in the past 12 months has been extraordinary and as the head of the organisation I often have to stop and think about where we are sending our people to do the work that they do.
In the past 12 months we have been we have been serving in Jordan, we have had people who have gone to Iraq to investigate the hostage incident involving Douglas Wood. We continue to have people serving in the Solomon Islands, in East Timor and in Papua New Guinea.
We have terrorist tracking teams operating in the Philippines and in Indonesia, who are working with overseas counterparts in a totally foreign environment trying to protect the Australian community.
And here at home, we have police attending each and every day incidents that could potentially become dangerous - whether it be a domestic dispute in the community policing environment or working on transnational crime to investigate some of the biggest criminal syndicates.
Every day is a challenge in policing. In one sense that is what makes it so exciting and so rewarding for people who are honoured to serve in the profession.
There is a legacy that is left by those who have lost their lives in serving as police and today is the day that we take a moment to reflect on what they have contributed.
I take this opportunity to thank the families of the police who support us each and every day in the work that we do, wherever we do it, in particular those families who have suffered a lot in providing that support to us.
Thank you.