Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome a veteran-centric approach. It makes sense, of course: you focus on veterans when you're trying to help them. The more the focus is on veterans and their families and their needs, the better. Our shadow minister for veterans' affairs, the member for Kingston, has already given a comprehensive statement of Labor's position in relation to the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 2) Bill 2018 and our support for its provisions. For the record, I happen to think the member for Kingston is doing an outstanding job, advocating for veterans and their families, and I commend her for it. Recently, she came to Darwin and attended a forum which I convened for the veterans in my electorate. She heard their concerns and answered their questions. Solomon has well over 2,000 veterans. One of my most important objectives as the member for Solomon is to ensure that the people who have served our country receive the support and assistance they need, particularly as they transition into civilian life and build their lives after service.

This bill contains six schedules. They are all important, and we support them, but I wish to speak particularly today about the first two, which relate to education and employment, and to suicide prevention. Education and employment are crucial for veterans transitioning into civilian life, particularly for those who have had to leave the ADF because of injury or incapacity. Unemployment is a critical issue for veterans that are leaving the service. It can lead to financial hardship, depression, mental illness, family breakdown and homelessness. We know that about 30 per cent of those leaving the ADF fail to find a job. For those who do, it is often below their capabilities and at a pay level significantly below what they were earning in the Australian Defence Force. But of course it's not just about the money, as important as that is; it's about purpose, about having meaningful employment—a worthwhile job that also provides a routine and structure to life. The social connections that come with employment can go some way towards replacing those previously provided by military life.

I note that Labor has committed to a $121 million veterans' employment program, which will assist veterans to move into meaningful employment and assist employers to hire prospective workers with highly transferable skills. Talking to my dad, a Vietnam veteran, and his mates, I think the best thing that can be done, if possible, is to come out of the military into employment. The transition from military life to education can also be challenging. In this regard, I commend the work of the Australian Student Veterans Association, ASVA, which helps veterans overcome these challenges by establishing chapters in universities throughout Australia to provide a peer network for veterans on campuses. These chapters can link veterans with like-minded students who have also served, to give veterans some sense of that camaraderie in the ADF and so they can assist each other, because that transition process can be pretty tough. I want to acknowledge in particular someone who's had to transfer out of the forces due to injury—that is, Matty Wyatt-Smith, the national manager of strategic engagement with ASVA. I also acknowledge our own Hannah Taino-Spick, from Palmerston, who is doing wonderful work with ASVA in my electorate, in particular with Charles Darwin University.

Schedule 2 creates a new suicide prevention pilot. This trial program will build on the coordinated approach used in the two previous trials, providing intensive services to ensure veterans receive support when they leave hospital with access to relevant government and non-government treatment and services. I want to in particular recognise the great work of the member for Herbert, Cathy O'Toole, in her advocacy for establishing the first suicide prevention trial in Townsville. The second trial created the coordinated veterans' care pilot, aimed at providing mental health support for veterans in rural and regional areas. There is a great and real need for a similar service to be based in my electorate in Darwin. I urge the minister and the department to consider establishing a specialised mental health and suicide prevention unit to service our more than 2,000 veterans in Darwin, Palmerston and the surrounding rural areas in partnership, of course, with the Northern Territory government. As an ex-service person, I have known many men and women directly affected by the tragedy of suicide. I hope the reforms in this bill will go a long way to avert such personal tragedies into the future. I fully support this trial and the others currently underway. I look forward to seeing the results that come out of them. I sincerely hope for the trial's success.

I want to quickly touch on an issue that has affected many veterans—mefloquine. It is a current issue that has been raised with me a number of times by veterans and it goes to the ex-service personnel involved in anti-malarial trials using the mefloquine family of drugs. I again acknowledge the work of the member for Herbert, Cathy O'Toole; she's a great advocate for the veterans in Townsville and in her electorate. Dr Mike Kelly, the member for Eden-Monaro and a former Army officer, has also spoken about the effects that these experimental drug programs, these trials, had. He has also joined the calls for an urgent inquiry.

Some of these trials took place as part of INTERFET, which went into Timor-Leste almost 20 years ago now, but the trials also involved ADF personnel deployed to Bougainville. The then Minister for Veterans' Affairs—and we've had quite a few, but at that time it was Mr Tehan—told these veterans he would set up a dedicated mefloquine support team to assist with mefloquine-related claims. Unfortunately, he didn't do that, and we found out through Senate estimates that there is no dedicated team and that a few DVA staff deal with mefloquine inquiries along with their other duties.

I want to acknowledge that the shadow minister has led the way and has joined with the new minister, who is with us here in the chamber, who now has the opportunity to right this wrong, to do the right thing and to set up a full inquiry into the mefloquine anti-malarial trials and some of the disability claims resulting from them. The minister, I know, understands that it's his duty to address this issue and to do the right things by the veterans and their families who may have been harmed during these trials.

I want to now move to the concept of a one-stop shop. To go back in history a little bit: since the end of the First World War, we have, as a nation, recognised that we have a responsibility to care for our returned service personnel. Arguably our greatest military commander, John Monash, saw it as his duty to ensure that we commemorated the sacrifices of those who died in the service of our country and to support those who returned. In the past 100 years, this sense of national obligation has led to a complex system of government and non-government organisations intended to support veterans and their families.

The bill presently before us is an example of our efforts to meet the changing needs of veterans and their families, and in recent years there has been a growing and welcome awareness of the problems and challenges faced by our serving personnel as they return from overseas armed conflicts and as they leave active service. This awareness has been mainly focused on health and wellbeing, with particular concern about what we now understand to be post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and suicide.

But one consequence of the proliferation of organisations and services intended to aid veterans is that, in the words of the National Mental Health Commission Review 2017, it may be 'leading to results that are not necessarily in the interests of former service members'. My friend Colonel Andrew Hocking CSC, in a private capacity has put forward some very thoughtful suggestions about how we can simplify and improve the process of provision of services to veterans. He writes that there are now:

… an estimated 2,780 ex-service organization locations now established across Australia and a further 3,474 charities with veterans nominated as their beneficiaries.

While the growth in veteran support has generally been positive, with more choice of service providers, greater geographical access and more responsive support, there is now a need to serve cross-sector veteran and family needs, and a need to review the effective functioning of the whole system. He says that it would be counterproductive to invest more in individual organisations and programs without investment in the functioning of the overall system.

He has made a suggestion which I strongly support: the establishment of one-stop shops for veterans and their families. He points out that, at present, veterans and their families are largely left to fulfil the function of cross-sector coordination themselves. He writes:

Prior to attempting any self-coordination, veterans struggle to understand what cross-sector services are available to them. Veterans are expected to conduct their own research, develop a degree of knowledge and expertise of the services available, and then individually apply to each service provider. This is stressful and in some circumstances overwhelming. For this reason, there is a compelling argument that the veteran support system should be optimised for the ease of interaction by veterans and their families.

The one-stop shops would aim to develop networks and a thorough expertise of community, state, federal and cross sector services available in a particular region, and then to develop mechanisms that assist veterans and their families to coordinate their access to these services. Whilst the human nature of supporting veterans and their families warrants the establishment of physical one-stop shops, the development of virtual tools is likely to be of benefit.

Consideration could be given to reviewing the extant facilities and resources resident in individual organisations (including RSL, DVA, ESOs but also other federal/state/community social service hubs), with the aim of collaboratively pooling these facilities and resources to achieve the functions described above. A one-stop shop would not only ease the burden on veterans and their families but allow for effective evaluation of the services available. This further serves a dual purpose of highlighting duplication of services and reducing costs and overheads for individual organisations, resulting in a more efficient and effective use of available whole of nation resources.

I commend Colonel Hocking's suggestions to the minister and the future minister.

In conclusion, I would like to confirm Labor's support for the measures contained in this bill. I commend the government for bringing them forward in legislative form. However, as the minister is well aware, there's more to be done. The Mefloquine issue is an instance where the government has failed our veterans and their families. The whole system of services and support for veterans, whilst well-meaning, is fragmented, complex and confusing. In my electorate we need a one-stop shop where veterans and their families can go to seek guidance, advice and practical help. That's what I'm committed to. I'm committed to supporting those who have served our country and have served our community.

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