Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to congratulate the Launceston RSL ADF Welfare Team for its success in the recent Volunteering Tasmania volunteering awards for 2018. The ADF Welfare Team was formed over a year ago in response to a gap in support services for veterans. Tasmania has a proud history of supplying members of our armed services and a higher proportion of ex-service personnel from the general population. The dedicated team provide a range of services to former and current ADF members who might be struggling to get by or to re-integrate with civilian life. The ADF Welfare Team is led by Nadia Titley, who only two weeks ago contacted me for help with housing excess furniture that had been donated, such is the level of community support for their good works. In Tasmania at the moment there is a housing crisis, and overnight temperatures in Tasmania drive the urgency for real action to address housing and homelessness. Some veterans are struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. They are isolated, homeless and, as we heard in the parliamentary inquiry last year, suicidal. The ADF Welfare Team provides everything from a friendly ear that understands to support packs for people who find themselves homeless and to helping with practical help with housing and accommodation. In 2014 the socioeconomic and cultural value to Tasmania of volunteering was estimated at a conservative $4.9 billion. The work these volunteers are doing is priceless to our veterans, and I congratulate them. (Time expired)