Government to build new $10m site for National Vietnam Veterans Museum

A new $10m purpose-built site will be built to house the National Vietnam Veterans Museum on Phillip Island.

A new $10m purpose-built site will be built on Phillip Island, to house the National Vietnam Veterans Museum.

The multi-million dollar project will support the museum to modernise its exhibitions, increase visitor capacity and improve visitors’ understanding of the Vietnam War and its impacts.

It will also allow the museum to better engage with the veterans’ community and its volunteers, the government says.

Victorian Veterans Minister Shaun Leane made the announcement on Tuesday, saying the investment would honour those lives lost, those who survived and the lasting impacts on families, carers and veterans in the community.

“We will never forget the sacrifices made by the thousands of Australians who served in the Vietnam War. This investment will preserve and honour those sacrifices so future generations will never forget,” he said.

Member for Bass Jordan Crugnale, National Vietnam Veterans Museum founder John Methvan, National Vietnam Veterans Museum director Gary Elliot, Victorian Veterans Minister Shaun Leane and Member for South Eastern Metropolitan Tien Kieu at the announcement of a new $10m National Vietnam Veterans Museum site. Picture: Supplied.

Local member for Bass Jordan Crugnale said the new site would have “commemorative garden and nature walks” that could be a “healing and learning place to visit for generations to come”.

“This new, purpose-built museum will be a magnificent national landmark, provide the community a new space to honour and reflect upon the sacrifices of our veterans,” she said.

Important photo exhibition honouring Indigenous Australians arrives on Phillip Island

An exhibition honouring First Nations Australians who have served or are currently serving in the Australian Defence Force has come to Phillip Island.

The exhibition, which has only been displayed once before and features 20 hanging canvases and countless other pictures, was captured by human rights social documentarian and photographer Belinda Mason and will be on display at the National Vietnam Veterans museum for the next three months.

Two of the men featured in the gallery, Uncle Roy Mundine and Uncle John Burns, made the trip to Phillip Island to share their stories of serving in the Vietnam War.

Uncle Roy served twice in Vietnam and was the first appointed the first Indigenous Elder of the Australian Army in 2016.

He has an Order of Australia Medal and served until 1995.

While he was serving in Vietnam he lost his leg.

Hanging canvases make up part of the Serving Country exhibition now showing at the National Vietnam Veterans Museum.

He said exhibitions like this were crucial, especially in small places like Phillip Island, not only to honour the men and women who had served but to “educate” future generations.

“Education is the pathway through life,” he said.

“And if people, especially our young people, listen to these stories, they learn, they learn how to reach down and help a fellow human being.”

The gallery was photographed by Belinda Mason, a photographer from Sydney.

She said she was proud to bring the gallery to Phillip Island, a community which, through the museum, had done so much for veterans of the Vietnam War.

“It is important to honour these beautiful, proud people who served,” she said.

She said she was inspired to create this collection of work after photographing Uncle Roy for another exhibition she put together called “Unfinished Business”.

“Hearing his story was one of the pieces of the puzzle that came together to make this gallery,” she said.

Another piece of the puzzle was attending the Coloured Diggers march in Sydney where she began taking portraits.

“It was displayed at the University of Sydney and it just kind of took off from there,” she said.

“Now I am just shy of 300 portraits.”

Uncle John also served twice in the Vietnam War, once in 1966 and again in 1977.

He was, as far as he is aware, the only artillery man to have served in both major battles in Vietnam.

He said to be recognised in an exhibition like this one felt “good” not just for himself but for everyone who had a story of war.

“Doing things like this, it brings us a millimetre closer to reconciliation,” he said.

Uncle John described fighting in the war as if it were yesterday. He said he could “still hear the mortars”.

He described one battle in which they were running out of ammunition when suddenly all these soldiers ran to the gunner’s aid.

“The rain had just cleared and I can still see it as clear as anything in my mind, out of the rubber plant all these soldiers came running to us and they went to the bay and started distributing the ammunition to us,” he said.

“That’s when I realised we are all one. We all wear green skin, we are all here to help each other do a job.”

But back home he said it wasn’t as united.

“They (Indigenous soldiers) weren’t given the same privileges as their white comrades. They were sent back to their missions with nothing. If a woman’s husband died she was kicked out of her home with her children with no means of support,” he said.

So, he said now was “better late than never” to get the recognition they deserved.

Ms Mason said this was the history she had tried to honour in her photographs.

“All these people have served and I think ‘do they have to die’ to get recognised,” she said.

“They should feel proud of the service they have given.”

The exhibition will be showing at the Vietnam Veterans Museum for three months before it heads to Cairns.