Television Interview, ABC News Breakfast

SUBJECTS: Remembrance Day; Eleven Australian Soldiers Identified More Than A Century After The First World War; OpenAI Rapid Review; Cricket

JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: Richard, welcome back to our program.

RICHARD MARLES, ACTING PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, James. How are you?

GLENDAY: I'm very well, thank you. Tell us about your great uncle.

MARLES: Well, it's a remarkable story. I was notified a few weeks ago that I was one of the living relatives, the next of kin to Lieutenant Andrew Anderson, who died on the 20th of September 1917 in the Battle of Menin Road in Belgium during the First World War. He's one of 60,000 Australians who lost their lives during the First World War. But as I've come to learn almost a third of that number were unidentified. And for more than a century, he has been in the Hooge Crater Cemetery in Belgium under an unknown soldier headstone, a headstone which says ‘Known unto God’. And in the last month or so, he's been formally identified, which means that next year there'll be a formal service which will change the headstone over his grave. But this is a, you know, a genuinely remarkable revelation for us as a family, and it's incredible that this work continues. And as you said, during the course of this year, 11 Australians from the First World War have been identified. That turns out to be quite a large number in any given year. It's normally about four or five, but there is the Army's Unrecovered War Casualties Unit, who does this work to this day and provides closure to families around the country.

GLENDAY: Yeah, I'm familiar with their work. I spent some time with them in regional France more than a decade ago. I'm curious, what sort of process did you have to go through for this? Were you sending off a lock of the Deputy Prime Minister's hair to get tested, so you knew the DNA matched?

MARLES: I think a number of the cases are actually DNA matching, but in the case of my great uncle, it wasn't. It was a matter of actually matching the records. There is a Reverend Gaenor Berkin, who I've not met, she's from Scotland, who is an expert in this area. She happened across my great uncle's case and she did the research back in 2020, submitted a letter to the Australian Army that she felt that she had identified Andrew Anderson. That then triggered an investigation from the Unrecovered War Casualties Unit to essentially verify her work, which was undertaken by Major Lachlan Newham, who I had the opportunity to speak with in the last couple of weeks, which was a thrill for me, to be honest, to talk to him about the process that he went through, but it was really painstaking matching of records and eyewitness accounts of my great uncle's death, his burial in the trenches, essentially, and then the recovering of his body immediately after the war, which enabled an identification of the grave. And as I said, it's an extraordinary story in terms of that identification. But what it's led to for me is looking through all of his records, the Red Cross records, and really learning about a young man who enlisted at the age of 19. At that point, that required his parents, my great grandparents, to give their consent to him enlisting at that age. He enlisted as a private, rose through the ranks. I mean, it must have been an extraordinary journey for him because he really did kind of was very successful. And two weeks after, less than two weeks after being promoted to lieutenant, he lost his life in this battle.

GLENDAY: Yeah. Thank you very much for sharing that story. I know it will resonate with a lot of Australians who have families that experience that generational trauma from World War I. Hopefully you get over there to see the headstone. Before we let you go, I'm keen to get your view on a couple of domestic issues. What do you think about Qantas offshoring these jobs?

MARLES: Well, look, James, I think it's a disappointing decision. It's obviously very disappointing for the more than 800 workers who are involved here. What's really important, obviously now, is that Qantas is working with them, with their representatives, the unions, to make sure that as many are redeployed as possible. I mean, we very much understand that advances in technology will play out. But it's really important that Australian jobs are a focus here. And it's really incumbent now on Qantas to make sure that they are working with those people and redeploying them where they can.

GLENDAY: You were up yesterday with the Prime Minister talking about AI. I'm just curious, has the alleged Nvidia Honeypot Scandal, which is gripping the United States, caused any discussion within your government about some of the potential spying that could be taking place within Australian companies?

MARLES: I mean, not particularly in the sense that we're obviously watching what's playing out there. It's really a matter for the US authorities to go through that process. But, you know, we maintain very significant security measures for people who are in a position of knowing classified information and our nation's secrets. That's largely people in the public sector. As you said, there are some people in private –

GLENDAY: Do you worry, though, that any big business executives in Australia could be being targeted in this way?

MARLES: Well, there are people in the private sector who have access to knowledge of our secrets and again, there are security arrangements which apply to them. So, you know, we take this very seriously and, you know, countries around the world obviously do. Without commenting on this case specifically, we do live in a world now where there are significant levels of espionage, so we are very much on alert and in terms of information technology, IT, cyber, and now very much in a world of AI, I mean, that is where a lot of activity is going forward. And so we're very careful about maintaining security around all of that.

GLENDAY: Just finally, one of the highlights, no doubt, of your career was the 2023 World Cup Cricket final in India. You got to be there for the presentation. We know you like the game. As a fan of cricket, should there be another investigation into the sandpaper saga?

MARLES: Well, look, I will leave that to others. I mean, obviously there has been a significant process that was undertaken at the time. I understand people write their memoirs and so these issues become topical again, but I think I'll leave that to them.

GLENDAY: You're a leader. If you were advising Pat Cummins, he's a leader, should he be out there explaining what he knew, when, those kind of things?

MARLES: Well, look, I mean, there was a process at the time, it obviously had significant consequences for a number of the cricketers involved. And so that has all happened. I think, you know, we are focused on the game going forward and, you know, what I took. I was riveted by the recent series in South Africa, which, of course, was the first time our Test team had been back there since then. And whatever else, it was a fantastic celebration of Test cricket. And, you know, I'm really looking forward to the upcoming summer and the Test matches leading into the Ashes next year.

GLENDAY: It doesn't sound like you're going to do a Malcolm Turnbull and weigh into this. I guess an advantage you have, Richard, of course, is that cabinet discussions are secret. Do you ever worry when your former colleagues put pen to paper like this, though?

MARLES: Look, it's not what I'm intending to do. I mean, that's a matter for others. I do my best to just go about my business.

GLENDAY: Richard Marles playing a very straight bat as to be expected. Geelong looking spectacular as always. Thank you for joining our show.

MARLES: No worries. Thanks, James.

ENDS