Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

To all those that continue to wear the uniform, our veterans and your families: the freedoms that we enjoy today are on the back of hard-fought battles, wars and sacrifice that you have made. Through natural disasters, peacekeeping and combat operations, our Defence Force members have served with honour and distinction. When they transition out, they expect to get looked after and to make sure that their government has the policies and the framework to make sure that they get the support that they need. But, tragically, we have seen far too many of our brave men and women succumb to their war within—served their nation proud but died by suicide. That is a national shame. It is something that we in parliament should never accept as being normal or a reality.

Our veterans, our Defence Force members, deserve the respect, the dignity and the support that they need. Establishing a national commissioner is a step in the right direction. The coalition called for and established the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide because veterans and their families deserve truth, accountability and reform. We took that step recognising that too many families had been ignored for too long and that confidence in the system was broken. The royal commission confirmed what families and the ex-service community had been saying: there were systematic failures, and it required systematic oversight and structural reform. It made clear that lasting reform requires independent, system-wide oversight across the Defence and veteran ecosystem, not oversight embedded within departments.

One of its most significant recommendations was the creation of a permanent, independent statutory oversight body to drive reform and measure progress. These bills, the Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner Bill 2025 and the Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2025, are intended to give effect to that recommendation, and the coalition supports that objective. Independent oversight with real powers, public reporting and parliamentary accountability are essential if reform is going to be genuine, measurable and sustained. Oversight bodies without teeth do not drive change; they produce reports that gather dust.

Establishing the commission through standalone legislation is the right model, and it is the model the coalition argued for from the beginning. The government's original attempt to create the commission through a late amendment to unrelated legislation was rushed, poorly handled and lacked proper consultation with the parliament and the veteran community. A major structural reform body should never be created through a last-minute legislative insertion that undermines confidence and scrutiny and the importance of it. Parliament was asked to wave through a complex oversight body with limited visibility and limited stakeholder engagement. That is not how serious veteran policy should be made. The coalition supported the amended vets bill only to avoid delaying long-overdue compensation and rehabilitation reforms for veterans, not because we supported the government's process or structure. We made it clear at the time that the commission should be established through standalone legislation, entirely separate from defence and DVA, with stronger independence and guarantees.

We moved an amendment to ensure that a dedicated Senate inquiry could provide proper scrutiny of the commission model. That inquiry confirmed widespread stakeholder concern about independence, structure, powers, family inclusion and clarity on remit. Many of the improvements, including the true independence of this standalone bill, exist because of the scrutiny that was forced, not because they were built into the government's original design. During the Senate inquiry, stakeholders were clear that the commission must be genuinely independent from Defence and DVA, have clear authority and operate transparently, and this bill is stronger because of the contributions of those individuals and ex-service organisations.

The inquiry and information-gathering powers are appropriately strong because weak oversight powers produce weak oversight outcomes. Those powers are balanced with safeguards, warrants, procedural fairness and the rights of response, which ensures both effectiveness and fairness. Public reporting and mandatory tabling in parliament are critical. Oversight only works when findings are visible and cannot be buried inside agencies. Mandatory government responses within set timeframes matter. Recommendations must trigger action, not silence.

It is also important to put on the record that this is not a new idea from this government. The coalition introduced legislation to establish an independent national commissioner for defence and veteran suicide prevention back in 2020. My friend the member for Gippsland stood next to me and the then prime minister in the courtyard after meeting with families and ex-service organisations and announced this as a policy, as a bill, as something that we wanted to bring forward to make sure that we weren't going to be burying any more of our bravest, by having a strong, independent national commissioner who would investigate and shine a light into where the problems had been and to learn from it so we could make sure that our people were not dying by suicide.

The bill that we proposed was for an independent statutory oversight body with basically the same structural features that are now being implemented some six years later. Labor opposed that legislation at the time, and it was for political purposes. Their stated position then was that a royal commission was necessary first, but they then rejected an immediate independent oversight mechanism that could have begun driving reform and accountability years earlier. As a result, the establishment of an independent statutory oversight body was delayed. The delay matters because early independent oversight working alongside the royal commission could have accelerated system reform and earlier accountability across DVA and Defence.

The structure Labor is now implementing closely mirrors what the coalition proposed after having voted against it. It is fair to say that if the coalition's national commissioner model had been supported instead of opposed, independent oversight would already be mature and operating. The coalition will support this framework now because veterans and their families cannot afford further delay, but the history should be acknowledged. Labor put politics ahead of veteran wellbeing five years ago and is finally delivering on the commission. Later today, I'll be moving an amendment to this bill. I will speak to that later.

It is important to note that the national commissioner is not here to pull out every individual case. It is to look at the systemic problems and the failures, shine a light on them and make sure we learn from them. I'd really like the national commissioner to not have a job. I'd like that person to not have to review what the coroner has written, speak to people in Defence or speak to families who are heartbroken because their loved one has succumbed to their war within. We shouldn't have lost more people by suicide on Australian soil than we ever did in combat. It is not good enough, and it's a failure of consecutive governments—I don't care what colour shirt you wear.

I stood in the back corner during the pandemic, when we had to have a lectern; we weren't allowed to sit in our seats. I looked up to the gallery and saw mothers of those sons who have died by suicide holding their photos. I remember looking up and saying, 'I'm sorry.' I think every suicide that has happened since I've been elected means I've failed. We have failed. The families have this part of their heart ripped out. We argued, debated and didn't act in the best interests of these families. We were divided; it was politicised. I don't think any political party was immune to it being politicised. It was horrible. It didn't bring their loved ones back. It didn't make their hearts get filled with love again.

But we have an opportunity now to make sure that we're putting in legislation that is right. I don't want to bury any more of my friends. I don't want families to bury any more of their sons and daughters. I don't want wives and husbands burying their loved ones, children growing up without a parent, or mums and dads growing older without their children. That's not what I want to see. I think it's important that, whilst we debate this and highlight different areas, we do it with one thing in the front of our mind: we only sit in this place because of the brave, heroic actions of our Defence Force personnel, our veterans and their families. We owe it to them to make sure that we're doing everything we can to look after them and make sure we're doing everything we can to get them the help they need if they need it. Not all veterans are broken; some of us are. We're veterans, not victims. We want a hand up, not a handout. But the parliament's job is to make sure that veterans can get the support that they need.

I want to again thank the member for Gippsland. It wasn't an easy time when we were talking about the national commissioner, the royal commission, a global pandemic and everything that was happening. I remember having a long chat with him about what's right. It's very easy to get caught up in the political turmoils and what your political party, the government or the opposition are doing, but it's right to stand up and say: 'Do you know what? This is long overdue. It needs to happen.' We need to be sitting with the families without saying, 'This is what you get.' We're asking them what they need, because we failed them.

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