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

This month I was privileged to attend the annual No. 22 Squadron dinner that's held in honour of Flight Lieutenant William (Bill) Newton VC at the Richmond RAAF base. This is a night that brings together many of the current serving members and retired members of No. 22 Squadron to remember the bravery of Bill Newton, who went missing in action in March 1943, having completed 52 operational sorties in New Guinea in World War II. Bill's story as an airman—his passion for flying and his skill—is worth hearing. The presence of his family members at the dinner, including young grand-nephew Will, who shares his name and birthday, makes it a very special event. It was a wonderful night, and I congratulate all those involved in making it happen and thank New South Wales Governor, David Hurley, for his thoughtful and powerful speech. What I walk away with from these evenings is the reinforcement that the people who choose to serve this country in the military have particular qualities that set them apart. Every conversation I have with members of the Defence Force and veterans reinforces for me that the choices they make to serve are ones that make them different from civilians and that they need a special set of supports from this parliament.

While we rightly focus on the needs of veterans—their medical and mental welfare needs as well as the more practical part of transitioning to the civilian world—we also need to focus on their families more. I find myself often in conversation with partners of serving and former defence members, who share with me some of the extra challenges of having a partner who will move every couple of years into a new role in a new town in a new state. This is why I believe it's right that we develop a military covenant to make sure our serving men and women and their families know how much we value their service and remain committed to looking after them. Labor has made a commitment to do this, and I was pleased to hear the Minister for Defence say that he's also exploring the idea. I do hope that we can work collaboratively on this so that it's an issue that binds rather than divides us.

We are of course in awe of the determination, strength and skill that's currently on display in the Invictus Games. I've read many of the interviews with athletes, and the recognition of the transformational effect from their involvement in these games, after being injured or nearly killed in an incident, is clear. So many of the athletes have talked about having a purpose, having a reason to get moving, having a challenge—all the things we know can help make life worth the effort it must be in coming to terms with a changed physical ability.

In the Blue Mountains, we are particularly proud of Springwood resident Craig McGrath, who won Australia's first gold medal of the games, in the sailing, and also a silver medal in a driving event not officially part of the games, but he was pretty pleased to be presented with his medal by Meghan, who he said was very nice. Like so many competitors, Craig has enjoyed the experience of the Invictus Games and his close encounter with the royals. Craig was serving in Afghanistan in 2012 when he and members of his unit walked into a booby trapped mud wall compound. Five metres from where the bomb exploded, he sustained shrapnel wounds to his ankle, hip, knee and shoulder, a broken leg and burst eardrums. I met Craig in his home a few weeks before the games. We talked about his work in Afghanistan; his recovery; the impact on his family, including on his young sons, of both his service and his accident; and the decisions and choices that he's had to make. I'm absolutely thrilled for his success. We don't have a lot of champion sailors in the Blue Mountains, but the large group of Blue Mountains family and friends cheering him on were very proud of him, and we all know how proud we are of his achievements.

Our willingness to invest to support people like Craig and others who have come to me to talk about transitioning shows me that we have work to do and we must continue doing it. That's why Labor has announced a veterans employment program. If we're elected, this program will ensure that veterans' skills are not lost in translation. It will encourage businesses to get the benefits of employing these highly valuable people. There are four key elements to our program.

The first is about businesses, providing training grants of up to $5,000 to address any specific short-term skills gaps that a potential employee may have which might be the barrier to their employment. I have talked to veterans who have missed out on interviews, and often this is about businesses simply saying, 'Look, you've got nearly everything, but there's one bit missing.' These grants will help address some of those issues.

The second part of it is to better inform employers about the skill set that former ADF members have. I think the five days I spent at Amberley on the base last year showed me the extraordinary breadth of skills, be they organisational, management or specific trade skills, that members of the ADF accrue in their very many roles over the course of their time with the ADF. We will be providing $30 million to an industry advisory committee to fund and develop a national campaign to make sure that this extraordinary skill set is better understood.

The third thing is to establish an employment and transition service for anyone transitioning out of Defence. This will provide greater individualised and tailored support to veterans over a longer period of time. It will work with individual veterans to identify career goals, audit the skills they have acquired over the course of their career and make sure that they obtain civilian recognition for those skills. The service will also work with veterans to identify other potential barriers to employment—things like health, housing and community support that they may need to make sure that they can find fulfilling employment. I think we all know that a first job doesn't always work out, so we think that this service should be available to veterans so they can return to it over a five-year period after they have left the ADF, just in case they need some extra advice or guidance as they go on that journey into the civilian world. We also want to see the qualifying period for extra education and training assistance brought down from the current requirement of 12 years to five years, and the top level of assistance down from 18 years to 15 years. Given our understanding that, on average, members serve for 7½ years, the change would mean the majority of those who leave the ADF would be able to access the assistance.

The fourth part of our employment and transition plan is to work with the states and territories and peak industry bodies to identify opportunities for greater automatic recognition of skills that veterans have. We think these things will help the transition which is so important to take people from the career that they have so successfully had in the Defence Force to being successful in a civilian world.

When an individual serves, in many ways their families are serving too. As I have said, they have to pack up and move frequently. When Defence Force personnel move into civilian life, their families are also faced with a very big change. Again, this is an area where we need to work more closely with families so that their voices are heard in this process.

I think the other area that has come up for me time and time again is recognition of the things we need to do to support the mental health of serving Defence personnel as they leave the service. The Senate inquiry into veteran suicide showed us many things. The Mental Health Commission report into suicide and self-harm and the ANAO report provided really clear recommendations on how we can do better. I welcome the government's commitment to implementing many of the recommendations, but I note we're also waiting for the Productivity Commission's review. While it is important to wait for those final recommendations, I would urge the government not to stall on these things. There are things the government could do immediately such as lifting the Medicare rebate freeze, because right now that's impacting on the day-to-day medical needs of people.

Finally, I'd like to speak about Remembrance Day on 11 November. This year we mark the centenary of armistice and, like many others, I'll be marking this one in one of the RSL-organised ceremonies in my electorate of Macquarie. I'd like to encourage the community to take part and share a minute's silence to recognise the guns falling silent on the Western Front after more than four years of continuous warfare. We'll remember those in that war who sacrificed so much—in my case, both my grandfathers served on the Western Front, and they made it home but not without their scars. We'll remember those who served in World War I and subsequent conflicts and have paid that ultimate price. It's important that we do take the time to remember and reflect, and as we do we should thank our ex-service organisations for giving us the opportunity to do that at these commemorative services.

I thank all current serving men and women of the Defence Force and their families for what they do in serving our nation.

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