The first statue of a woman in the 81-year history of the Australian War Memorial has been unveiled in Canberra. It depicts Australian army nurse Vivian Bullwinkle. But it might never have come into being without a campaign and fundraising effort by the Australian College of Nursing.
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00:00 A rainbow breaks through the clouds as a hero breaks through the bronze ceiling.
00:07 Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkle was the sole survivor of 22 nurses brutally machine
00:12 gunned on Banker Island by Japanese forces in 1942.
00:17 A champion of the nursing profession, Bullwinkle was also the first woman on the Council of
00:22 the War Memorial, yet nurses needed to ask for her statue.
00:26 I think it's an indictment of how women and nurses are valued in society.
00:32 I have to ask for so much.
00:33 I have to ask for a seat at the table.
00:35 Vivian Bullwinkle rose above adversity.
00:38 Now at three metres high, everyone looks up to her.
00:42 81 years and finally it's taken us that long to have a named statue of a woman.
00:50 Just four people have been put on a pedestal in the grounds of the War Memorial.
00:54 Bullwinkle joins Simpson, Dunlop and Monash.
00:58 Though not named, this digger and his dog came eight years before a nurse and her fallen
01:03 comrades.
01:04 Vivian and many women should have been recognised much earlier than now in many ways throughout
01:10 our country.
01:11 The statue was asked for and also paid for by nurses.
01:15 The College raised $500,000 to commission the work.
01:18 From Boeing to bake sales, funds came from corporate and private donations, but not from
01:24 the memorial's half-billion dollar redevelopment fund.
01:27 It looks like a lot of money that the War Memorial has received, but when you look at
01:32 equivalents now under construction, it's actually not so big.
01:38 The memorial says it's developing how it will depict the service of women in its new Iraq
01:43 and Afghanistan galleries, due to open in 2028.
01:46 [BLANK_AUDIO]