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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, federal
environment spokesman Peter Garrett, state MPs and RSL
representatives.
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," Garrett told
AAP.
NSW RSL president Don Rowe said he was pleased with the turnout in
Wednesday's wet weather.
"It certainly hasn't dampened their spirits," 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.
On Wednesday, 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," 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.
Port Moresby
Thousands of people including hundreds of Kokoda Track walkers have attended a dawn Anzac Day service at the Bomana War Cemetery near Port Moresby.
Candles, a school choir and a PNG Defence Force honour guard featured in the service held on a slope above rows of white tombstones marking the graves of Australians and other Allied troops who died in PNG during World War II.
The service was attended by PNG Governor-General Paulias Matane, Australian High Commissioner Chris Moraitis, other diplomats, Australian and PNG war veterans and a good portion of Port Moresby's Australian and New Zealand expatriate population.
Meanwhile, more than 200 Australian trekkers attended a dawn service on the Kokoda Track, at the Isurava Memorial, after they timed their walk to be there for Anzac Day.
The track was the scene of bloody fighting between Australian and Japanese soldiers in 1942 and is becoming increasingly popular with Australian trekkers.
Vandalism
Five teenage girls allegedly spraypainted anti-Anzac slogans on a war memorial in the NSW city of Bathurst, hours before the Anzac Day dawn service was due to begin.
Police said anti-Anzac slogans and peace signs had been painted on the external walls of the 73-year-old memorial, which is the central-western city's main war shrine.
RSL members, council workers and fire brigade officers spent hours removing the graffiti before the local Anzac Day dawn service began.
After receiving numerous calls about the vandalism, police
conducted extensive patrols of the area and discovered the
five
girls nearby, allegedly still covered in white paint.
The girls were taken to Bathurst Police Station where they were interviewed.
Police then charged a 16-year-old girl with charges of maliciously damaging a shrine and police property. She was bailed to appear at Bathurst Children's Court on May 28.
The four other girls, all aged 15, were referred to the police youth officer and will be dealt with under the Young Offenders Act.
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