Australian War Memorial’s $500m upgrade to honour modern vets

The memorial will receive a $500 million upgrade to better tell the stories of our service men and women over the past 30 years.

‘It’s here we reveal our character as a people’: Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson with plans for the redevelopment. Picture: Gary Ramage

The Australian War Memorial will receive an almost $500 million ­upgrade to better tell the stories of Australian servicemen and women from the past 30 years, ­including a new underground entran­ce and an 83 per cent expansion to its total exhibition area.

The upgrade — which includes a new ANZAC Hall, research centr­e and glass atrium large enough to display a Black Hawk helicopter — has been driven by AWM director Brendan Nelson.

Dr Nelson told The Australian yesterday he had pushed for an expansion to the iconic building — which he likens to the soul of the nation — since his first two days in the job in December 2012.

The initiative has bipartisan support and will put into action a design, chosen from 18 possible options, providing the best value for money. The upgrade will not change the visual aesthetic of the building from the front.

“It’s here we reveal our character as a people, we reveal our soul,” Dr Nelson said. “There’s 102,700 names of men and women on bronze panels in that war memoria­l. Every single one of them is equal in death.

“I said to Tony Abbott when he wanted an Arlington-style cemet­ery in Canberra that we’ve got one man buried at the war memorial, we’ve got no idea who he is … (but) we revere the idealism and hero­ism of the everyday Australian. That’s why this place is ­important”.

Scott Morrison will announce the development today at a major event at the Great Hall in Parliament House in Canberra, featuring video recordings of veterans explaining the personal meaning of the building to them and their families. The works are due to finish in 2028, thanks to a government ­investment of $498m.

Dr Nelson will also use today’s launch to unveil his separate “Places of Pride” initiative for the memorial to digitally display image­s of every local memorial and cenotaph in Australia.

Writing in The Australian today, the Prime Minister pays tribute to the “small band of citizens” who “express their love for Australia in a way the rest of us haven’t”. “They have pledged their lives to our nation by signing up and joining the Australian Defenc­e Force,” he writes.

Mr Morrison says Australia needs to do more to respect ADF personnel who have “been involved in the more recent chapters of our military history, like the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

“There are three ways our governm­ent stands with our servic­e personnel and our veterans. They are: a strong ADF, real support for veterans, and by honouri­ng the memory of those who have served.”

Dr Nelson said the works would begin with the knockdown of the ANZAC Hall in 2020 and its replacement with a much larger building.

The extra exhibition space will be used to tell the stories of Aust­ralian peacekeepers — including in Somalia, Rwanda and Cam­bodia — with Dr Nelson saying there was simply “no capacity to tell the story of what’s happened in northern Iraq and Syria in the last three years”.