ANZAC of the Year

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E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga iwi katoa, e huihui nei, tēnei aku mihi māhana ki a koutou.  Kia ora tātou katoa.  Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, warm greetings to you all.

I specifically acknowledge: Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association National Vice-President Barry Clark;  Dr John Wood and Dr Rod Carr, Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor respectively of the University of Canterbury; Erin Jackson, President of the Canterbury University Students’ Association; and Sam Johnson and representatives of the Student Volunteer Army.

Thank you to the University of Canterbury for enabling the reception this evening.  I know you are in a busy period of graduation, and finding a window would have been fraught with challenges. 

Let me say that I am delighted to be here to present this year’s ANZAC of the Year Award.  This venue and the whole arrangement mark the ceremony as a superb tribute.  Shortly I will read the citation and confer the award.  Before doing so, I would like to briefly speak of the wider significance of this event.

Tomorrow New Zealanders and Australians around the world will gather to mark Anzac Day—the day the men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps—the ANZACs—stepped into our history when they landed at Gallipoli.
In a tragic campaign that claimed thousands of lives, the service of the ANZACs was marked by courage, comradeship, commitment and compassion. 

Those values—the ANZAC spirit—have been demonstrated by other New Zealanders on battlefields and in conflict zones around the world, as they have fought to defend our country, our democratic values and to bring some semblance of peace and stability to troubled lands.  Many paid the ultimate sacrifice for their service and many lie buried in lands far from home.

Those values, however, are not confined to military service.  They are values we should all aspire to and they are the values that have been repeatedly demonstrated by the people of Christchurch and Canterbury.

Two months ago we gathered at Hagley Park to mark the first anniversary of the February earthquake.  We acknowledged with pride, the actions of ordinary Kiwis who put their own lives at risk to pull injured people from shattered buildings.  And we remembered that despite the adversity, the bonds of compassion, community and friendship have remained strong and resilient.

The values embodied in the ANZAC spirit are universal.   They are values that every parent seeks to instil in their children.

Young people often get a bad rap.  Often we hear or read of “them” being disrespectful, selfish and uncaring.  However, the response of the Student Volunteer Army to the series of earthquakes that have devastated this region show just how wrong critics can be.  We will hear more of the Student Volunteer Army’s exploits when I read the citation for this award. 

When the panel decided a few weeks ago that this year’s award would go to the Student Volunteer Army we were very conscious that it was different from those previously conferred.  The two previous winners, John Masters and Brian McMahon, were ex-military men and the embodied the Anzac spirit as individuals.

However, the panel quickly came to the conclusion that the actions, initiative and spirit of the Student Volunteer Army also met the criteria of the award.  The young men and women who went out and delivered exceptional support did so in the true spirit of the original Anzacs.

The Student Volunteer Army’s work shows that the values of the ANZACs are not relics of a bygone era. They are as important to young people of today as they were to the young people—the ANZACs—that landed at Gallipoli 97 years ago.

I congratulate the Student Volunteer Army on winning this well-deserved award, and thank everyone involved for your on-going contribution to making Christchurch, Canterbury and New Zealand a better place for us all.

Kia ora huihui tātou katoa.

Citation

With compassion and commitment their most powerful weapons, the Student Volunteer Army is the 2012 Anzac of the Year.

The Student Volunteer Army, utilising brains and brawn, created a legion of volunteers to help a community in need, providing a shoulder-to-shoulder service alongside the many New Zealand service organisations that willingly, and commendably, rose to the call with the spirit of volunteering, beyond normal obligation, that came to the fore following the Christchurch earthquakes.

This band of students and volunteers took on the forces of nature with a combination of today’s technology and the good old Kiwi spade, displaying in bucket loads the spirit of comradeship and commitment at the very heart of Anzac. Their selfless service in a positive and compassionate manner is exemplified by the way students abandoned their studies, time and time again, after each new liquefaction event.

The Student Volunteer Army was initiated by University of Canterbury student Sam Johnson.  Following the 7.1 magnitude Christchurch earthquake on 4 September 2010, Sam set up the Student Volunteer Army Facebook page where students could find information about how to volunteer. In the two weeks following the earthquake, the Student Volunteer Army organised placement, transport, food and support for over 2,500 volunteers. Focussing on low risk areas during the immediate response period, they helped clear over 65,000 tonnes of liquefaction.

After the devastating 6.3 earthquake on 22 February 2011, the Student Volunteer Army was deployed again, but with even greater efficiency and effectiveness to successfully dispatch thousands of volunteers within a three week period. As well as the mass-deployment of volunteers to deal with liquefaction, working with contractors and others to clear over 360,000 tonnes in over 75,000 volunteer working hours, the wellbeing of residents was also a focus, offering hot meals, clean water and coordination for resources and services that otherwise may not have been used.  The Student Volunteer Army also supplied and managed operations for various organizations including multiple government departments, Civil Defence, and the City Council, delivering chemical toilets and information pamphlets, laying sandbags, staffing data entry and manning call centres. Their Facebook page had over 26,000 followers by March 2011, acting as a platform to organise and coordinate volunteers and non-skilled labourers in Christchurch together with internet based mobile management technology.

The Student Volunteer Army continues to help those in need of assistance. In April 2011, Sam Johnson and Jason Pemberton, Student Volunteer Army Team Leader, travelled to Tokyo to set up a Japanese version of the Student Volunteer Army, made up of university students in areas hard hit by Japan's massive earthquake and tsunami.
Clean up operations were also run following the June earthquake in partnership with Federated Farmers ‘Farmy Army’, and the Student Volunteer Army operated a volunteering centre in December, again using the 'tools in their pockets' such as Facebook, Google Maps and Gmail to coordinate hundreds of volunteers from across Canterbury.

The Student Volunteer Army now has a charitable trust focused on relevant youth volunteering in New Zealand and learning from the disaster experience, while the University of Canterbury club continues to provide opportunities for students to play an active role in Christchurch's recovery.

The Student Volunteer Army provides a positive perception of our contemporary youth.  These young students typify a generation that values loyalty, meaningful work and shared purpose, echoing the spirit of Anzac born at Gallipoli through the activity of young men of the very same age.  The endeavours of young New Zealanders to help others, turning a legacy of a time of crisis into their routine daily life, provides an example we can all look to, showing that comradeship, courage, compassion and commitment are values that are still very much part of our psyche. The actions of the Student Volunteer Army confirm that the spirit embodied in the tradition of Anzac is truly alive in New Zealand today.