19th Annual 'Coloured Digger' Commemorative Service
Friday, 25 April 2025
Redfern War Memorial
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC
Thank you, Col[1] and Raphael,[2] for this service’s Smoking Ceremony.
I pay my respects to Elders, of all lands across NSW from which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander servicemen and women have served - and continue to serve - our nation. I also pay my respects to First Nations members of our Defence Force here present.
Reverend Ray,[3] Minister, special guests, members of the Redfern and other communities,
It is an honour to join you for this 19th 'Coloured Digger' March and Service, here at Redfern Park.
This graceful War Memorial is today as much a place of community gathering as it was back in 1920 when it was erected from the collective donations of local people to honour the sacrifices of local servicemen. One thousand people gathered on that first occasion, including Light Horse commander Brigadier-General Charles Cox and State Premier James McGowan, who had played in the park as a child, stating that “no other service of this kind … held for him the significance that this one did,”[4] a sentiment which lives on today.
In 2006, it was another community initiative that inspired Pastor Uncle Ray Minniecon to establish the Coloured Digger Project, together with Chris Carbe, Warren “Pig” Morgan, and Uncle Harry Allie, an initiative that meant that, for the first time, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ service to our country was to be recognised and commemorated by the community. It sounded an end to a history that had not merely been left to fade away. It was something that had been left invisible and much worse, forgotten. This initiative was the sound of a triumphal bugle that brought to the fore the courage and tenacity of every single Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander who fought for this country in time of war and who has served this country in time of peace.
In 2007, the first March was held with hundreds of Aboriginal veterans and their descendants, marching from The Block, along Redfern Street to St Saviour’s Church.
The 'Coloured Digger' name originated from a Second World War poem written by Bert Beros in 1942, a non-Indigenous “sapper” or combat engineer on the Kokoda Track. The poem was an expression of respect and mateship - a tribute to a fallen fellow soldier, Private Harold West, a proud Murriwarri man from Goodooga.
Known as “The Ghost of Kokoda” for his ability to steal behind enemy lines, to ‘lob’ a deadly grenade and then almost invisibly melt back into the jungle, it was said that Private West could track “a Geegar (a little black ant) up a crowbar after six inches of rain.”[5]
A year earlier, on the ancient sands of Libya, Cecil Clayton, a Wiradjuri soldier from the Riverina, had also “defended country” with the 2/13th Battalion, 9th Division AIF. Cecil was one of the “rats of Tobruk”, a term so-coined with laconic defiance and pride as a badge of honour by Australian soldiers during the eight-month long siege of Tobruk.
In the Western Desert, contending with searing heat, freezing nights, and sweeping dust storms, the Allies ‘stood up’ to the German-Italian army commanded by General Rommel, defending the garrison from their positions in underground dug-outs, caves, and crevasses. Cecil’s unit remained to the end of the siege at Tobruk, providing much-needed time for the British Army to re-group before their defeat of Rommel at El Alamein.
Cecil returned home to that invisibility of which I have spoken - to a country that failed to extend its gratitude, respect or recognition to him and the many other Indigenous veterans who were denied access to schemes that provided returning soldiers with land and job opportunities, had their income and pensions quarantined and were not permitted to attend military funerals and RSL clubs.
Tragically, his children were taken away. His daughter Iris would later write of her father’s experiences in a poem, entitled The Black Rat.[6]
The last two verses read:
“He fought for this land so he could be free.
Yet he could not vote after his desert melee.
And those years in the desert they really took their toll,
He went there quite young, and he came home so old.
This once tall man came from a proud Black tribe,
Died all alone – no one at his side.”[7]
On the occasion of the Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial Dedication, Prime Minister Paul Keating said: “We cannot make good [the] hurt any more than we can undo war itself.”[8] However “we can make good their memory.”
This is the great achievement and legacy of the Coloured Digger March and Service, which has enabled to make good the memory, to pay our overdue respects, and to hear the stories, including of those who lie in unmarked graves here, and on other ancient sands.
We will continue to honour and remember them.
Lest we forget.
[1] Warrant Officer Class One, (Uncle) Col Watego OAM (Retired)
[2] Raphael Hatziptrou
[3] Reverend Dr (Hon) Uncle Ray Minniecon
[4] https://www.warmemorialsregister.nsw.gov.au/memorials/redfern-park-war-memorial
[5] https://placesofpride.awm.gov.au/news/community-news/264285
[6] Iris Clayton, 1988:
https://www.ratsoftobruktribute.com/reading/poems/black-rat
[7] https://indigenous-histories.com/2013/04/18/black-rats-aboriginal-soldiers-at-the-siege-of-tobruk/
[8] Australian Vietnam Forces National Memorial Dedication, Canberra, 1992: https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00008687.pdf