Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to stand and speak today not just as a veteran but also as one of the co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Veterans. I want to go back to a moment in time I shared with the Deputy Prime Minister just recently at the Mark Oliphant College. I got asked a question by some students about what shaped me and my journey to politics. I sat there and thought about the question that had been posed to me. After much reflection since I've been elected to this place, I realised my time wearing our nation's uniform really formed the basis for everything I've done following enlistment.

For, me my enlistment happened in December 1996. It was an extremely joyous period in my life. I'd just finished high school. My mates, who I'd been through primary school and high school with, were all sitting down, and we made a decision to enlist together. In January and February of 1997—maybe not so smart—we headed off to Puckapunyal and completed our basic training as enlistees to the Australia Army Reserves. And it started a learning process for me that helped shape me into the person that I am today, something that I'm extremely grateful for.

The reason why I want to start there, and start with that explanation, is, as rightfully the member for Riverina said earlier, not all veterans are broken. We must see through the scars and see the skills that our veterans have. There are some fine contributions that have been made by veterans, not just in this chamber but across our great country, post service.

But the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide did uncover a lot of alarming facts. I am one of those people who have had good mates that I served with commit suicide on discharge or not long after. I have watched some of my mates really struggle with PTSD after their service overseas. And, unfortunately, they had been left waiting when they most needed support.

That's why I'm so buoyed by the support that's now being put in place ensuring that we talk about veteran wellbeing from the day you enlist. When I enlisted, your discharge was never talked about; it was far off in the distance. It was a never-never. 'It's not going to happen to me.' I discharged after three years of service. I had friends who discharged after one year of service under medical reasons. It's when you discharge—when you least expect it—that things start to come down on top of you. And that's when we see things spiral out of control, often because it's never been a realisation that we need support. So I'm extremely encouraged by the fact that we are going to start talking about the process to civilian life following your time in uniform, as a key focus of the findings from the royal commission.

I do want to take special note of a very special person, who was sitting in the chamber, in the House of Representatives, earlier this morning whilst the minister gave his address—and that is Julie-Ann Finney, who is a remarkable South Australian, with a remarkable son, David. She really has been a shining light in ensuring that this royal commission got off the ground, and she has seen it through.

She has turned up time and time again in this place to make sure that this royal commission delivered outcomes to prevent suicide and a lack of support from being the norm for our ex-service personnel. I want to say to Julie-Ann Finney: thank you for everything you've done, thank you for being here today and thank you for everything that you will do in the future, because I know that you are not going to stop. You are making a huge difference and it does need to be acknowledged in this chamber.

I have the very great pleasure of being in a chamber with quite a number of ex-serving personnel on both sides of the chamber and on the crossbench. I think it does help when we have these types of discussions to have that type of experience from all sectors of the chamber to ensure that accountability and delivery of the findings happen. One of those findings was the backlog of claims—approximately 41,000 when we came to government in 2022. To hear today that we have cleared that backlog completely and are reviewing claims within 14 days sends a really clear signal to our veterans that they are valued and we are providing all the right levels of support to make sure that their claims matter and are of the highest priority for this government.

The Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Act will also go to assisting this process. It helps simplify what has been an extremely complicated rehabilitation compensation scheme for veterans. When we go out to our RSLs across our electorates, the first thing we hear is about a veteran who has gone through delay after delay after delay to get the help that they need. They haven't been able to get a decision to be able to move forward and get the treatment that they desperately need, or they have had to go into significant financial hardship to get treatment just so they can stay on their own two feet and carve out a living. The simplification of these rehabilitation acts is massive—it will make a huge difference for so many veterans moving into the future. I can't wait for next year when this new act goes live. It's going to make life so much better for our veterans—and so it should.

When the final report was handed down last year—seven volumes, 122 recommendations, a lot of work—we agreed in principle or agreed to 104 of the recommendations, noting 17 for further work. We established in December the Royal Commission Implementation Taskforce within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to oversee the development of comprehensive and considered advice on implementing the response to the royal commission. At the beginning of August this year, nine recommendations were fully implemented, and there are a further 110 under way. We are making headway—we're getting there—but we've got a lot more work to do.

The new Defence and Veterans' Services Commission will be up and running by the end of September, a significant step in the right direction. We are recruiting the inaugural Defence and Veterans' Services Commissioner. This appointment will drive systemic change, and champion the wellbeing of serving and ex-serving ADF members across government and the ex-service community. It will also introduce standalone legislation to ensure its independence and enhance oversight of implementation.

I want to talk about defence and veteran mental health wellbeing briefly in the limited time I have left. This is such a big subject matter that it's hard to fit it into 10 minutes. When I think about veteran mental health and wellbeing, I think about my family and veteran wellbeing hub that we've just recently opened in my electorate of Spence at the Playford health precinct. It has been an absolute game changer for my community. We have RAAF Base Edinburgh, which sits right at the heart of my electorate. It has brought out ex-service organisations together. It has given us the ability to provide critical services to veterans and their families when they need them most. It really is making a huge difference. When I met with the team from Lives Lived Well down there two weeks ago, the information was clear: this is working, this is helping veterans and it is making a huge difference for their families.

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