Calder Cam: Holidays (Full Recognition of Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Calder Cam: Holidays (Full Recognition of Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 27 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:9014. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr CAM CALDER (National) 
: 
 I would like to acknowledge Dr David Clark for having a member’s bill before Parliament. It is well done. Anzac Day 25 April—25 April: a day of respect a day of commemoration a day of reflection a day of significance and a unique day that marks the sacrifice of generation after generation. Allow me to paint a picture for you. The place is Pukekura Park New Plymouth. A young boy 3 or 4 years old; the first time he had heard a band with the kettle drums; the first time probably he had heard a pipe band and felt that curious tingling at the back of the neck that anybody with antecedents from Scotland always feels when they hear the pipes; long lines of men and some women snaking into the ground; at the back the school cadets; and before them—it is shortly after the Korean War—quite a few Korean War veterans the larger majority of World War II veterans and a smaller number of World War I veterans. But the smallest group—the smallest group; very very small—probably fewer than a dozen frail older men with their medals clacking the poppies on their chest was walking at the head of the parade into Pukekura Park in New Plymouth. 
Among those men was my grandfather Harold Morley Thompson. These were the men the last men a few of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles who had gone to South Africa to serve in New Zealand’s first overseas campaign. Almost 6500 New Zealanders served in that campaign. I guess that was the first time I felt that sense of pride in the fact that my grandad was there. And sitting on his knee and listening to his stories of that campaign I became aware of what it meant to serve King—or at that stage Queen—and country. I remember him being enormously proud. I remember him being enormously proud to be part of it to be there on Anzac Day and I remember hearing some of the stories. If I could be indulged by the Committee I remember him telling a story that somehow he committed the unwritten crime—well it is not unwritten; it is quite clearly written down—of not having the rifle that you have been issued with. He was a mounted rifleman but had no rifle—he had a carbine. Unfortunately the carbine has a much shorter range than a rifle. He was engaging the Boer at some 500 yards. His commanding officer heard the crack as Thompson engaged the enemy and recognised that it was not a rifle—he recognised that it was a carbine—and said “Thompson 200 yards forward.” He survived that unfortunate brush with the increased proximity of the enemy and lived to come back to New Zealand and have a very long and successful life. 
Some years later I was leading my own platoon of school cadets in the Anzac parade in the same place at Pukekura Park and I venture to suggest that all the students—even though we were all young at 13 14 15 and 16—on that parade were very cognisant of the sacrifices made on their behalf by those who were not there with them on that Anzac Day parade. A few years later as a member of the Otago University Medical Company “the Blue Berets” I attended many a Dawn Parade in Dunedin met the veterans heard their stories and was introduced to the notorious Dawn Parade rum coffee. 
More recently I have been honoured to attend the Dawn Service at the Manurewa Cenotaph. I see a colleague across the Chamber from me today whom I remember being there a couple of years ago. The colleague I have just mentioned and another colleague from the Labour Party had arrived without a wreath so in the spirit of the day I gestured to them to come up and we laid the wreath together as local MPs in the area. It was an indication of the special unique nature of the day. I just want to leave—