Extract from Hansard [ASSEMBLY — Thursday, 1 March 2012] p530d-531a Mr Ian Blayney HMAS SYDNEY II — SEVENTIETH ANNIVERSARY Statement by Member for Geraldton MR I.C. BLAYNEY (Geraldton) [12.57 pm]: On 19 November 2011 Geraldton held a moving service to acknowledge the seventieth anniversary of Australia’s biggest naval loss of HMAS Sydney II some 120 kilometres west of Steep Point. The Mount Scott site chosen by the Rotary Club of Geraldton in 1998 for the memorial was opened on the sixtieth anniversary in 2001. It was declared a national memorial in 2009 by then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd when he visited. As a part of the seventieth anniversary service, the fifth element of the memorial, a pool of remembrance, was dedicated to commemorate the finding of the Sydney. I want to recognise the work of the Finding Sydney Foundation, the commonwealth government, the Western Australian and New South Wales state governments, the Royal Australian Navy, the relatives of those lost on the Sydney and Glenys McDonald. In addition, two plaques were uncovered to acknowledge the loss of men from the Royal Australian Navy and airmen from the Royal Australian Air Force who were serving on her. Special guests included Air Commander Australia, Air Vice-Marshall Mark Skidmore, AM; the chief of the Royal Australian Navy, Vice-Admiral Raymond Griggs, AM, CSM, RAN; the Minister for Defence, Hon Stephen Smith; the WA president of the Returned and Services League of Australia, Bill Gaynor, OAM; the RSL national president, Rear Admiral Ken Doolan, AO; and the Governor of NSW, Professor Marie Bashir, AC, CVO. Professor Bashir recalls as a child seeing the crew of the Sydney march through Sydney when they returned from the Mediterranean during World War II. In the words of the Naval Ode — They have no grave but the cruel sea; No flowers lay at their head, A rusting hulk is their tombstone, Afast on the ocean bed. Lest we forget. Sitting suspended from 1.00 to 2.00 pm [1] .