Remembrance & Healing
The Names That Remain
Across Australia, communities have created places for those whose lives were lost or forever changed by work.
The Act of Remembrance
Every memorial begins with a life—and with people determined that life will not be forgotten.
While filming Shattered, we visited memorials across Australia: in cities, industrial towns and communities shaped by tragedy and occupational disease. Some hold hundreds of names. Others remember a single event. Each carries a story of work, loss and the people left to live with what happened.
On 28 April each year, International Workers’ Memorial Day calls us to mourn the dead and fight for the living.
This page honours the lives remembered, the families who carry their absence and the communities that built these places in grief.
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
Across the Lithgow region, generations of workers and families—from coal mining, steelmaking, power generation and brickworks—have lived with the consequences of dangerous work. Their stories remain part of the community’s history—and part of the reason we began Shattered here.
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 also evidence — carved testimony to the price some have paid, lives lost at work, some as young as 14.
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. Grief and lost was present in many communities we visited.
The quiet truth each memorial whispers is this:
Healing begins when we acknowledge the past and sometimes it requires saying we are truly sorry we failed you.
Shared Rituals & Healing
We must all work to turn 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.”