Newman farewells students to Western Front

QUEENSLAND'S premier has recalled his haunting visit to the Western Front while farewelling five students who will follow his steps.

The students have won the inaugural Premier's Anzac Prize to visit the Western Front and Gallipoli.

Mr Newman, who is the son of a war veteran and former member of the army, farewelled the students at Brisbane airport on Sunday.

Marking the occasion, he recounted an emotional experience in 2008 while visiting the battlefields in France where his great uncle died in World War I.

His body was never recovered.

"To stand on a field where your ancestor died and to be there perhaps one hundred metres from where he was last seen, and knowing his body lies somewhere on the field, is a truly amazing, very sobering and surreal experience," he said.

Mount Isa student Elijah Douglas, 16, won a spot for his multimedia presentation on indigenous soldiers fighting despite not being classified as Australian citizens.

He played a didgeridoo at the farewell which he made and painted.

He will give it to a school in France.

"I thought of travelling, but I never thought this would come," he told AAP.

Some 50 students will be chosen to visit the battlefields over the next three years.

Mr Newman wants them to have priority for the 2015 centenary celebrations at Gallipoli, after the federal government announced it would hold a ballot to decide who goes.

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