Thousands march in Anzac Day parade, but some veterans locked out

Melbourne’s troubled Anzac Day march and dawn service was bittersweet for veterans and descendants.

25-04-21 - Veteran John Murphy, 72, was locked out of the Anzac Day Dawn service in Melbourne. Picture Angelica Snowden,

Some Diggers were just meant to fight. John Murphy is among them.

As Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance gradually lit up from 6am on Anzac Day, it became clear crowds were gathering outside the fences erected by authorities to enforce the dawn service’s audience limit of 1400.

Where upwards of 25,000 have previously flocked to the forecourt and surrounds of the shrine to commemorate, this year just a fraction were allowed to gather with COVID-19 restrictions.

Mr Murphy said forcing veterans to register for the event, which was already severely capped on previous years, was an insult.

“I would prefer to be on the outside of a fence, and be free to do that, than have to apply for a ticket,” the 72-year-old said.

“I was never going to apply for a ticket. Never will.

“Had there been enough of us, we would have pushed the bloody (fence) over but there wasn’t even enough on the outside to do it.”

Amid veteran uproar about needing to register for the march and fury over attendee limits, crowd capacity at the Melbourne Cricket Ground had been lifted to 85 per cent, with up to 85,000 allowed to watch the ­Collingwood-Essendon clash in person.

Mr Murphy, who completed two years of compulsory national service from 1969 but was not posted to Vietnam, climbed a steep hill with his walker to view the dawn service from behind the fenced off area. “It’s ludicrous … that the AFL has been able to convince the government that it’s good to have 80-something thousand people at the MCG,” he said.

“There could have been 20,000 people here today in the same sort of conditions as the footy ground.

“The AFL has a bit more power than the RSL, obviously, and probably there is more money in it for the government.”

After the MCG was left empty in 2020, the traditional Anzac Day clash between Collingwood and Essendon is back at the 'G in 2021 🏟#AFLPiesDonspic.twitter.com/a37Z8SzkHc

— AFL (@AFL) April 25, 2021

Christian Roberts and his grandmother Flora Yeomans marched in honour of her late husband, Albert Yeomans, who fought in Bougainville in Papua New Guinea during World War II.

25-04-21 – Christian Roberts, 29, and Flora Yeomans, 91, have marched in Melbourne's Anzac Day parade for the last five years after their grandfather and husband – Albert Lyle Yeomans – died in 2016. Picture by Angelica Snowden,

“(My grandmother) marches for grandpa ever since he passed away. She holds a photo of him and wears his medals just to remember him and say thank you for his service,” Mr Roberts, 29, said. “If there are veterans who are old and don’t have a descendant or a grandchild … they are just going to be sitting at home.

“It’s garbage (the Victorian government) hasn’t put their foot down and said for the soldiers, let’s let it be how it’s supposed to be.”

Vietnam veteran Leigh Treleaven, 71, said he was “seriously unimpressed” that march numbers were capped. “If you are going to have 85,000 at a football game, I don’t see why you have got to restrict it. Their excuse is we’re all old — but we can make our own ­decisions.”

A spokeswoman for the Shrine of Remembrance said all 1400 people who secured a ticket for the Dawn Service attended, but large gaps in the audience made the crowd appear significantly smaller. An estimated 25,000 attended the dawn service in 2019.

From 9.30am, about 4000 veterans and descendants partici­pated in a parade along St Kilda Road after the number allowed to march was­ increased by 5500 to 8000. Just 1736 registered.

RSL Victoria said it did not count spectator numbers, which were far fewer compared with previous years, but hundreds were spread out along St Kilda Road clapping and cheering as veterans defiantly marched. RSL Victoria president Robert Webster hoped Anzac Day ser­vices could return to “normal” next year.