Portfolio — 22 April 2026

Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel Matt Keogh will travel to Papua New Guinea on Anzac Day to attend the service at the Isurava Memorial on the Kokoda Track, walk a section of the Track, and visit Australian war graves sites [TA-260422-dva-66d0959788f4]. The visit commemorates the 1942 Kokoda campaign, in which Australian and Papuan forces jointly repelled a Japanese advance on Port Moresby — a campaign in which approximately 8,000 Australians served, with around 625 killed and 1,600 wounded between July and November 1942.

The minister's presence at Kokoda on Anzac Day is not solely commemorative in framing: the media release ties the visit explicitly to the Pukpuk Treaty, signed last year between the Australian and Papua New Guinean Prime Ministers and described by the government as Australia's first formal alliance in more than 70 years [TA-260422-dva-66d0959788f4]. Under that treaty, Australian and Papuan Defence Force personnel now train and operate together in joint units.

The portfolio's messaging positions the Isurava commemoration as a live expression of that alliance — linking the historical sacrifice of 1942 to a present-day strategic partnership in the Indo-Pacific. The dual role Keogh holds across Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel gives the visit a coherent ministerial logic: honouring the dead while activating the defence relationship their sacrifice helped forge.