Article-Meg Webb to attend the Kingston Beach Dawn Service
Image from Kingborough Chronicle
Kingborough Chronicle | 14 April 2026: pg 15.
Meg Webb to attend the Kingston Beach Dawn Service
It is always a solemn privilege to attend the Kingston Beach Dawn Service.
The peaceful lapping of the waves as the sun slowly rises provides a stark contrast with that other dawn experience on the distant beach at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915.
It is not by accident we commemorate at dawn each year the sacrifices of those ANZACs and other Australians who served in conflicts and peace operations since.
The annual Dawn Service is a deliberate link connecting the past with current and future generations.
The tradition of wearing a rosemary sprig on Anzac Day is also grounded in that 1915 history.
Since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans rosemary has symbolised remembrance, memory and loyalty.
Rosemary grows wild across the Gallipoli peninsula, and returning soldiers brought back sprigs in memory of fallen mates.
One such wounded soldier brought a Gallipoli rosemary cutting to a South Australian military hospital in 1915.
Following that sprig’s successful planting, further cuttings from the hospital gardens were sent to nurseries throughout the nation to support emerging memorial sites of remembrance.
This ANZAC Day, the aroma of rosemary will join the sound of waves on Kingston Beach as we remember them.
Meg Webb MLC, Independent Member for Nelson
