Fed: Nations' representatives join Anzac wreathlaying

AAP General News (Australia)
04-25-2007
Fed: Nations' representatives join Anzac wreathlaying

Ed: Reissuing to clarify Garrett is Labor spokesman (par 2)



SYDNEY, April 25 AAP - Representatives of 10 nations have joined Australian dignitaries
in an Anzac Day wreath laying ceremony at Sydney's Martin Place.

Consul generals from New Zealand, Britain, the United States, India, Korea, Malta,
the Netherlands, Philippines, Solomon Islands and East Timor placed wreaths at the Cenotaph
in morning drizzle alongside federal Communications Minister Helen Coonan, Labor federal
environment spokesman Peter Garrett, state MPs and RSL representatives.

Mr Garrett said the Anzac commemoration was a time to remember when some essential
strands of Australia's national identity were woven.

"To bring other nations' representatives here as well for a significant but dignified
laying of wreaths, I think, enlarges that experience for those who represent other countries
here and confirms for us the significance of the day," Mr Garrett told AAP.

NSW RSL president Don Rowe said he was pleased with the turnout in today's wet weather.

"It certainly hasn't dampened their spirits," Mr Rowe said.

"We've seen people, obviously, making that effort to go to bed early and get up this morning."

World war II veteran Harold Low, 85, first attended the wreath laying ceremony at Martin
Place in 1929 as seven-year-old.

Today, he returned to commemorate his late father who served in France during World
War I and to remember his mates who did not make it back from Papua New Guinea in 1943.

"I come each year and my father used to bring me down as a kid from the Illawarra," Mr Row said.

As a young man he was in the battle for Shaggy Ridge in Papua New Guinea.

"Our assault on Shaggy Ridge freed the valley of all the Japanese and they retreated
way along the coast of PNG," he said.

The Sydney Anzac Day march from Martin Place, down George Street, to Hyde Park is now under way.

AAP krc/cjh/cdh

KEYWORD: ANZAC WREATH (REISSUING)

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