Thursday, 28 August 2025

Coburg RSL

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (17:31): (1299) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Veterans, and the action I seek is for the minister to visit the Coburg RSL to meet with local veterans and update them on the work the Victorian Labor government is doing to support our veterans community and their families. The Coburg RSL remains one of the oldest continuous local RSL sub-branches in Victoria and indeed Australia. First established on 1 December 1918 when a group of passionate returned service personnel from World War I, led by Herbert Rouvray, established the branch with a charter from the RSL, over the years since it has very much grown into a vital part of the Coburg community, with its members and volunteers shaping the legacy of Melbourne’s oldest continuing sub-branch. Its servicemen and women over the years have fought or nursed in virtually every conflict, confrontation or peacekeeping operation Australia has participated in, including World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, and in Somalia, East Timor, Solomon Islands, Iraq, Afghanistan and many other places around the world. Today’s members remain just as dedicated as ever in commemorating and remembering the service and sacrifices of our local veterans, including via the annual Anzac Day and Remembrance Day services and by supporting the wellbeing of contemporary veterans. But it has also become increasingly a community hub, as referred to in the Age article of 17 August by Madeleine Heffernan:

Coburg RSL is thriving thanks to its live music, scarf sales and army of volunteers.

…

It sells veteran-style scarves and has the mantra, “all welcome”, from babies to local hipsters and elderly veterans. The sub-branch’s membership numbers have grown from fewer than 200 –

when it was on the verge of closing some years ago –

to close to 1000.

…

At 107 years of age, Coburg RSL is a survivor.

I commend the role of all the Coburg RSL volunteers over those years, more recently and today in making it the successful veterans and community hub that it has become, and especially today’s president Michael Pianta, a solicitor by day who once served in East Timor and Afghanistan.

Our government continues to work and support veterans across the state and locally through a range of measures, including the ongoing support for the Shrine of Remembrance, the ongoing support for veterans commemoration and recognition across the state through the veterans card, the veterans public sector employment strategy and support for the Coburg RSL, including funding towards their new accessibility ramp, which we look forward to opening in due course when the minister may be able to attend.

With this week also being Legacy Week, I would like to pay tribute to the work that Coburg RSL does to support the legacy and wellbeing of veterans and families – 30,000-odd across Victoria. That is why I was honoured to last year also visit Gallipoli and pay my respects with the member for Morwell to local veterans who lost their lives, whose names remain immortalised on the wall of Coburg RSL. Two of them are Private Francis Joseph Docter, 22 years old, who died on 25 November 1915, buried at Shell Green Cemetery, and Private William Thomas Libbis, age unknown, killed on 7 August 1915, buried at Quinns Post Cemetery. We look forward to welcoming the Minister for Veterans. Lest we forget.