Barry Maggie: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: General Debate[Sitting date: 01 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2800. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister for Arts Culture and Heritage): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. I intend in my call today to reflect on New Zealand’s WW100 programme. The centenary of the First World War officially commenced in August last year and is going to be continuing through until 2019. It will commemorate a range of events that are international and national and that are also community based. There are some 850 community events that have been organised so far and the details are on the website for WW100 which comes out of my ministry.One hundred years on the centenary of the First World War is an immensely significant event. It was really the beginning of the Anzacs—the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps—and the ties that bind New Zealand and Australia were formed at that time. It has been said of both countries that our nationhood is built on the war effort and on the sacrifice of our forebears 100 years ago.The effect that the First World War had on this country is apparent in very many ways from our individual family histories to how we see ourselves as a nation and how we are seen by others. The so-called Great War is the cornerstone of our friendship with Australia. Strengthened at Gallipoli in the Middle East and on the Western Front the Anzac bond is a fundamental part of the identity of both of our nations. In the official history of Australia in the Great War the Australian historian Charles Bean wrote of the diggers—and it equally applies I feel to the New Zealand soldiers—that their creed was the miners’ and the bushmen’s: “Stand by your mate”. Cricket games notwithstanding we have done that ever since. Our partnership which was forged in adversity is as strong as it ever was. A hundred years on the centenary of the First World War is an immensely significant event to all of us.Hon Members: Why are you reading this?Hon MAGGIE BARRY: It is something that we need to take note of and with some respect which is not shown currently by the members opposite. When we reflect on the legacy of service and sacrifice and on how that war made an impact on the society we know today we need to reflect very carefully on the number of New Zealanders that went across to Europe: 100000 New Zealand men went across to Europe. At the time that was around 10 percent of our population. We went the farthest and our casualties were high. Our rates were something like 60 percent of those who went. They were wounded they were killed they came back and some of them died as a result of their injuries. More than 18500 men lost their lives. That is a truly chilling and staggering figure and I think that as we commemorate the next 4 years it is a figure that we need to keep in our minds.The soldiers though who returned from the wars did not necessarily tell their stories to their families or to the people whom they knew and loved. They found their experiences far too hard to talk about and for those people—some of them who could never share their stories—that challenge has been taken up now by some of the commemorative events that are being featured in New Zealand over the next 4 years.I give you one example: Sir Peter Jackson’s The Great War Exhibition which is going to be at Wellington’s old Dominion Museum. I have seen a preview of it. It is a truly sensational exhibition and there is much in that to be proud of. It tells the story of the individual men and women—the men who went away to the war and the women who stayed behind and kept the home fires burning. When you look at these unspoken stories through the theatricality of the Hollywood creative genius of Sir Peter Jackson we see essentially that our nation reveals itself as the men and women who were the way we were and who are the way we have become.So we look at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington. That is officially opening on 18 April 2015. I was at the dawn ceremony last week. It is a very special place and in it there will be a context of what we call the war memorial gardens. The Australian one—it is fitting—is the first of those. We will have the Prime Minister of Australia along with our Prime Minister present at the official opening. That will be followed by gardens and memorial tributes from the United Kingdom from the United States from Canada from France and also from other countries that we are in discussion with. Expect over the next 4 years and then beyond that many of the conflicts that our New Zealanders have been involved with over a very long period of time will be commemorated there.The ceremonies that will take place on 20 April really set the tone for what will happen through an action-packed Anzac week when people will come from all over the world to stand with us to commemorate our role and our experiences in the war. As the Minister responsible for the World War I commemorations I have been deeply impressed by the work that has been done at Pukeahu. It is our major commitment to the legacy projects of World War I but it not our only project. More than $10 million has been spent on the programme—