Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday morning I had the privilege of joining the 336 Squadron of the Australian Air Force Cadets at their annual trophy day parade, where they displayed their skill on the parade ground and several received awards for the very hard work that they had done throughout the year. There were around 50 cadets in all. There was a look of pride on their faces, whether they won an award or not. That was matched only by the pride on their parents' and families' faces. These are young people who spend often years involved in cadets and, when I speak with the older ones who are ageing out of cadets, many express a desire to join the Defence Force. It's these bright young faces I think of when we talk about suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel. This group had within it some of our service personnel of the future, and we need to be taking steps to make sure that the trust they place in an institution like the Defence Force, and the RAAF, is well placed. It's their parents' faces, glowing with pride as they watch their children, that I think about because they're the ones who trust that this parliament and the departments that we guide will provide a safe environment for their young people to work in as they go through their career.

It is the trust that something like the cadets has developed in these young people—the trust they have for the RAAF, the trust their parents have for the way they expect their children will be supported in a respectful way—that is so important in relation to this Senate inquiry and the findings it has made into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel, because it's clear that the trust has not always been well placed. It's beyond doubt that veterans and ex-serving personnel are not receiving the support that they have every right to expect and that their families have every right to expect for them. The 458 submissions that the Senate inquiry received from peak bodies, ex-service organisations and many individual veterans and their families show that, as does the data. It never ceases to shock us when we hear that the suicide rates of ex-serving men are more than twice as high as for those serving full time or in the Reserve. Ex-serving men aged 18 to 24 are at particular risk, two times more likely to die from suicide than other Australian men of the same age. Those who left the ADF after less than a year of service are 2½ times more likely to die by suicide than other groups, and those discharged involuntarily have a similarly high rate of suicide. Those figures show us that we haven't got it right.

The government has announced that it will accept every recommendation the Senate inquiry made, and we on this side are very supportive of that. That bipartisanship is crucial as we move forward. There's obviously work to do on the detail and we look forward to a collaborative approach bringing these recommendations to a practical implementation. There are 24 recommendations in the report about providing greater assistance to veterans. There are recommendations about the compensation claims process, which in itself is a fearful process for many people. I have been told that it exacerbates mental illness by its very nature. There are recommendations about the training of the staff who work in the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and it is crucial that they understand what it has been like for people who have stepped up and served Australia as members of the Defence Force. There are recommendations about the medico-legal firms involved in the assessment of veterans, and I have to say that all of these issues touch on conversations that I've had on the doorsteps of Glenbrook, Hobartville, South Windsor or McGrath's Hill, where many defence families live. It is often a mother or a father who talks to me about the challenges that their son, often, is having, having left the Defence Force. I find it interesting that it isn't always the immediate family who wants to talk about this stuff—it's not the partner, and certainly not the person themselves. They have enormous loyalty to the Defence Force. They spent years of their life there, the family has made enormous sacrifices and it gets to a point where it's the mum or the dad who quietly talks to me and says, 'What's happening is just not right.' I think this inquiry was able to give voice to many of those issues and has fulfilled a very important role in taking away the opaqueness that was around it. People were able to speak without it being seen as a disloyalty to the Defence Force, and that's really important. The RSLs and the Blue Mountains Vietnam Veterans association have very reasonable expectations of the way people should be treated, as do, by and large, the mums, the dads, the partners and the children.

In my electorate we have RAAF Base Richmond and Glenbrook air headquarters, so we have a large number of RAAF defence personnel. We are also very lucky to have St John of God Richmond Hospital, which focuses on veterans' mental health issues. But I welcome in this report the government's acceptance that we cannot just rely on existing services and we need to see some improvement in services. I'm particularly keen to see the trial program that will provide assistance animals for veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. My electorate actually has a hand in developing these assistance dogs, because we have the Guide Dogs breeding program at Glossodia. The guide dogs that don't quite make it through the program for assisting visually impaired people are often moved into an assistance program. I like to think that my electorate is going to be part of the solution through some of these programs. We certainly have some terrific stories of the assistance dogs that have been born and bred in the Hawkesbury.

One of the key areas the inquiry touched on was the danger of transition—that it is a really vulnerable time. Anybody who has had any involvement with mental health and how it affects someone's life knows that change is a real trigger for mental illness—things are going along well but then a set of circumstances changes. Why would it be any different for our people who have served in Defence, particularly when you think about the structure and the amazing support that people have within the services? I got a taste of that at Amberley through the ADF Parliamentary Program, when I got to see the sorts of structure and support that are there. It's easy to understand why leaving it creates vulnerabilities for people. So it's great to see that there are four or five recommendations that look at how we support people as they transition. I'm particularly pleased to see that all ADF members will have access to the DVA white card while they transition into civilian life. That's a really important step. It stops there being that gap, that time when all the support they had is suddenly gone.

The gaps in medical services are important to overcome, as are the employment issues. We need to provide more work not just at the point of transition, at the point of leaving the ADF, but as people are considering their future. My experience is that a lot of people in their 30s who have families ask: is Defence really where I want to stay for the next 10 or 20 years? They may or may not decide to leave, but we know that if they do they will need education and training support to help them transition into a civilian life where their skills are identified and they are recognised for what they are: diverse, highly skilled—often multiskilled—individuals who just need some support in shifting from the Defence structure to civilian life.

I want to finish where I started, and that's with the families. Ex-Defence families carry a huge load. Anyone with a family member suffering mental health issues carries a load, but for Defence it's an even greater load. So it's very good to see recommendations 19 and 20 in particular, which talk about more support for partners of veterans and for families. It's an area in which the Labor Party certainly want to see a lot more work done. When I think of family days for Defence I think of them as being not just about getting a ride in a plane but about supporting Defence families with their mental health.

Debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 12:09 to 16:00

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