Remembrance & Healing
Honouring those who built, suffered, and never came home
International Workers’ Memorial Day — April 28
We remember the fallen, and we walk toward healing — for those still living, still hurting, and still unseen.
The Act of Remembrance
Every year on 28 April, people around the world pause to mourn the dead and fight for the living.
It’s a solemn call to remember those who have died, been injured, or become ill through work — and a reminder that remembrance must always lead to reform.
In Australia, the day is marked by ceremonies, wreath-laying, and the reading of names. It’s both a moment of silence and a moment of conscience — a reckoning with the cost of work, and the systems that too often protect profit before people.
As we filmed Shattered, we visited sites across Australia that carry this legacy in stone and steel — from Sydney, Lithgow, and Cobar to Eden, Adelaide, Canberra, Mount Kembla, and Melbourne’s West Gate Bridge. Each tells a story of work, risk, and remembrance.
Near the foreshore where the colony’s first steam-driven flour mill began turning in 1815 signalling the birth of Australia’s industrial era — Memory Lines by Ingrid Skirka stands in quiet tribute to the countless workers whose effort, skill and lives helped build the City of Sydney. Its sweeping steel arcs suggest the invisible threads that link generations of working people — from factory hands and seafarers to teachers, nurses, builders, clerks, miners, tradespeople and more — while its circular form speaks to the cycle of work, life, and loss. Here, in a place shaped by industry, we honour not only the work they did, but the lives that were taken in its making.
Lithgow
In Lithgow, the past is written into the landscape. At the former State Coal Mine — now the Lithgow State Mine Heritage Park — rusted rails, workshops and winding gear preserve the story of a community built on coal and shaped by danger. Also in the region, the Coal Miners Memorial at Quota Park lists the names of those who never returned from the Western Coalfield’s pits. Together, the heritage site and the memorial hold two halves of the same truth: this industry powered a state, but every ton of coal carried a human cost — in bodies, lungs, families, and generations.
Cobar
In the outback town of Cobar, the Miners Memorial stands within Heritage Park, framed by the red dust of the open-cut mine.
Opened in 2020 after years of local fundraising, its weathered steel panels bear the names of more than 170 miners who have lost their lives since the 1870s.
Light filters through the tag board with names of those who didn't return home.
Every year, families gather for the Cobar Miners Memorial Ceremony, reading each name aloud so that no loss goes unspoken.
Eden
National Timber Workers Memorial — Wellings Park
The National Timber Workers Memorial in Wellings Park honours timber workers who died on the job. Its centrepiece, Hand of Fate by sculptor Rix Wright, depicts a bushman supporting an injured mate — a timeless symbol of solidarity.
Brass plaques line the sandstone wall, each bearing a name and date — ordinary men and women who met extraordinary ends in the forests of Australia.
Seamen’s (Shiralee) Memorial Wall — Rotary Park
At Rotary Park near Lookout Point, overlooking Twofold Bay, the Seamen’s Memorial Wall commemorates local fishers and maritime workers lost at sea — including the crew of the trawler Shiralee in 1978.
Waves break below, wreaths rest at its base, and families gather each April to remember those whose bodies were never recovered.
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Adelaide
On the banks of the River Torrens in Adelaide stands a permanent Workers Memorial, officially opened to honour the many who have died on the job.
What began as a quiet forest of remembrance, planted and tended by tireless advocate Rosemary McKenzie-Ferguson, has evolved into a thoughtfully designed space where families and communities gather to reflect, mourn, and remember.
Protected from future development, it stands as a commitment not only to memory — but to the value of human life in work.
Canberra
In the nation’s capital, the National Workers Memorial near Commonwealth Park looks across Lake Burley Griffin toward Parliament House — a deliberate reminder that workplace safety is a national responsibility.
Opened in 2013, its concentric paths symbolise connection between workers, their families, and the laws that govern them.
Bronze plaques bear names and stories that ripple outward, reminding us that safe work is the foundation of a just society.
Mount Kembla
At the foot of the Illawarra escarpment, the Mount Kembla Mine Disaster Memorial honours the 96 men and boys killed in the 1902 explosion — Australia’s worst industrial accident.
Each July 31, families gather to ring the memorial bell 96 times, one for each life lost. Here, grief became reform — and reform became legacy.
Melbourne — West Gate Bridge
In Victoria, the West Gate Bridge Memorial honours the 35 workers who died when the bridge collapsed in 1970.
Steel arcs mirror the bridge above, and etched names line the path. Every October 15, families gather to lay flowers and renew the vow: never again.
The Unseen Memorial
Across these sites, the names of those lost to physical dangers are carved in stone and steel.
Yet there is no memorial for those who have died from psychological injury — the nurses, teachers, police officers, first responders, public servants, and countless others who took their own lives after being broken by the systems meant to heal them.
Their stories live only in coronial reports, redacted files, and families who grieve in private.
Until we acknowledge those deaths — until we build a place for them in our collective memory — our national story of workplace safety remains incomplete.
We honour the fallen we can see. But the invisible deserve their place in the light too.
From Remembrance to Responsibility — and Healing
These memorials are not simply places of mourning. They are evidence — carved testimony to the price of neglect and the resilience of those who demand better.
Each year on April 28, candles are lit across the nation. But remembrance means little if systems continue to fail the living.
In visiting these sites, we saw not just the past — but the unhealed present.
The quiet truth each memorial whispers is this:
We are still building on the bones of those we failed to protect.
Shared Rituals & Healing
We must all continue this work — turning remembrance into repair, and grief into healing and action.
Credits & Thanks
With deep gratitude to the City of Sydney Council, Lithgow State Mine Heritage Park, Cobar Shire Council, the Eden community (and Bega Valley Shire Council), City of Adelaide, SafeWork SA, the National Capital Authority, the Mt Kembla community and Illawarra Historical Society, and the West Gate Bridge Memorial Committee for safeguarding these sacred places of remembrance.
“Every plaque is a promise: never again, not one more.”