Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

The National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention Bill 2020 is a very important piece of legislation and, whilst at the outset we in the Labor Party will reserve our ultimate position until we see the outcome of the Senate inquiry, we would advocate and have advocated for a royal commission and we will continue to do so, for the range of reasons that have been put here by other members in their contributions today.

I want to acknowledge at the very outset the contributions, particularly that I have heard this morning from the member for Pearce and the member for Braddon as well as that, of course, from the member for Clark, all of whom are former serving men, and we'll later here from my friend, the member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, who is also a former serving officer and who has been a driver behind Labor's position to advocate for a royal commission. But I just need to say that I thought the contributions from the member for Herbert and the member for Braddon were particularly poignant. I think it would be important to all of those who have listened to their contributions to understand how much better we are in this place by having the experience of people such as they who have served in the Australian military and by hearing their own experience. We heard from the member for Pearce, the unfortunate victim of an IED, and then the role of the member for Braddon in dealing with a suicide in a unit for which he was responsible. And then there were the arrangements which needed to be entered into not only around dealing with the deceased person but with the team. I think that, when we contemplate these things—I stand here as a former Minister for Defence Science and Personnel and a former Minister for Veterans' Affairs. Particularly during my time in this place and previously, having had that experience—and I've said this before—those of us who have not put on the uniform and served in the way our comrades have here cannot really understand the circumstances of our serving men and women. We have a program here that gives people the opportunity to experience a week a year working with defence personnel and being involved in units and activities, but we cannot ever understand, unless we're in those shoes, what it means to put that uniform on knowing full well that you might end up dead.

What we have heard today from the experiences that have been related to us by the member for Herbert and the member for Braddon—it was a great privilege to have heard from them—is significant for us. I hope it is significant for the whole of the Australian community to understand what it means, having heard them, to be wearing that uniform and what the outcomes can be.

I've spoken many times with my friend the member for Solomon and with other serving and ex-serving personnel over many years. There is an absolute frustration with our failure to be able to really comprehend and understand why it is that the suicide rates for ex-serving men and women are as high as they are. As the member for Lyne pointed out, the suicide rate for people serving is less than that of the general population, yet ex-servicemen are 21 per cent more likely to die by suicide than their counterparts, as the AIHW report indicates to us. For serving women the rate is twice that of the general female population. I don't know the real numbers, but we know that since the end of the 1990s, when we had the defence commitment to Timor-Leste and then the subsequent commitments to the Middle East in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have had tens of thousands of Australian men and women in uniform serve overseas, many doing multiple deployments—eight, nine, ten—particularly relevant for people in the special forces. I always pondered what impact those successive deployments might have on the health and wellbeing of those serving men and women once they left the Defence Force.

I can't attribute a reason for every one of the 465 deaths that have occurred over the period 2001 to 2018. It would be salutary to understand what the rates of suicide were for the decade prior to that. What I do know is that it is incumbent upon us to find out. That's why the royal commission is so important, and that's why Labor have been advocating for a royal commission in the way we have.

As the member for Lyne pointed out, and as I've just explained, the suicide rate for serving men and women is a lot less than it is for the general population. Indeed, the suicide rate for Reserve males was even less than it was for full-time serving men and women, and still less than the general population. What we know is—the member for Lyne made this observation—the suicide rate for those discharged on medical grounds was over three times higher than for those discharged voluntarily. We need to understand why that is. It's also the case that the suicide rate for those who are discharged for other involuntary reasons—they may have been kicked out—is also significantly higher than for those who are voluntarily discharged. Significantly, and surprisingly to me, the suicide rate for those who'd served in the Army was less than for ex-serving males who'd served in the Navy. Indeed, the suicide rate for ex-serving men who'd served in the Air Force was only half that for those who'd served in the Navy and significantly less than for those who'd served in the Army.

These issues need to be properly explored in a detailed way. We know that serving in the Defence Force is really a young person's game. Despite the longevity of service of both the member for Clark, the member for Braddon and my friend the member for Solomon—I think he had 12 or 13 years in service—it really is a young person's game. The average length of service is somewhere around seven years. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, you can imagine that people who enlist at the age of 18, 19 or 20 are done and dusted by their mid- to late 20s. So it's no surprise that the suicide rate for those under 30 is significantly higher than it is for those over 30. When we think about the impact that has on the community, on the families—how sad it is—then we need to have a way of finding out what happened. That's why this royal commission proposal is so important.

The issue of transition out of uniform into the civilian community is going to be different for different individuals. It's been perplexing now for many years. We can put in place all the support structures—and we should, and I'm pleased to say that the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Department of Defence have been working strongly and collaboratively together to ensure that happens—but we still can't explain why it is that people leave and don't make use of the support services that are available to them, yet clearly that's the case. So, of all the people who have been involuntarily discharged, what happens to them? How do we keep a connection with them? How do we make sure that they, and those who are medically discharged as well, are okay? What ongoing relationships are there? We've got Soldier On, the RSL and a whole range of other organisations that we'd like them to be attracted to and talk to, and many do, but clearly not enough. The sadness that's put on the community by these poor people taking their own lives: how can we accept the notion that it's like that? We can't do that. We need to support the member for Braddon, who acknowledged his own PTSD. That's a brave statement. There are so many like him. They need to know, as these men know, that they have our support, but there are so many who don't. We need to be able to demonstrate somehow that it's okay to cry for help, it's okay to seek assistance, and that assistance is available. It is available but, for whatever reason, we've still got unacceptable suicide rates amongst ex-serving men and women.

It's a great privilege and honour to serve in this place, and that privilege and honour carries with it a responsibility. That responsibility is to do the very best we can for the people of Australia and, in this case, most importantly, those who are prepared to put on the uniform and defend us with their lives. We have a responsibility to them and their families. It is not acceptable for us to turn away. I know we're not, and I acknowledge that there is strong bipartisan interest in and support for dealing with these issues. It's just that we have a different view about the merits of the commissioner as opposed to the merits of a royal commission. Nevertheless, it is incumbent upon all of us in this place to do whatever we possibly can, and are able to do, to work together to fix this problem. I am sure, if we are prepared to do that, we can. But it does require motivation, it requires sincerity and it requires respect. If we show that respect to those men and women in uniform, we can achieve the outcome we all want.

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