House debates

Tuesday, 3 December 2019

Adjournment

Veterans

7:50 pm

Photo of Luke GoslingLuke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

When Australians enlist in the Australian Defence Force, they swear that they will well and truly serve Her Majesty the Queen. They swear that they will resist her enemies and that they will faithfully discharge their duty according to law. And they swear that they will uphold the values of trust, loyalty and respect for Australia and for each other.

In October in the last sitting block, this parliament rightly supported, in a bipartisan way, the nation's response to this oath by recognising, in legislation, the unique nature of military service. This covenant represented our solemn promise to improve the reintegration and mental health outcomes of former soldiers, sailors, air men and women, and their families. This was an important moment in my parliamentary career, and it was important to many thousands of veterans around the country. It was about so much more than veterans' cards or lapel pins. It was about acknowledgement. It was about nation building, and this is exactly what Labor has stood up for today. As both a Labor MP and a veteran, I am incredibly proud of the position that Labor took today in supporting families' and veterans' calls for a royal commission into the unacceptably high—disproportionately high—rate of veteran suicides.

The statistics that recently came out of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report are truly shocking. Last week, we learnt that at least 419 ADF members and veterans who swore their loyalty and their very lives to protect us have committed suicide since 2001. This should shock all of our consciences into an urgent national and bipartisan response. We've lost at least 419 ADF members to suicide—almost 10 times the number of ADF members killed in all overseas operations since Afghanistan. It's also about six times the number of ADF members killed in all overseas operations since the end of the Cold War 30 years ago. In 2017 alone, we lost as many serving and ex-ADF members to suicide as we did in 18 years in Afghanistan. In 2018, I believe, we lost even more than that. These are outrageous figures and a national shame.

We should be ashamed to hear the most spurious and heartless arguments being rehashed about why a royal commission into veteran suicide would be a waste of money. I can understand the legitimate concerns about important royal commission recommendations not being implemented or funded. But, in such cases, the royal commission is not to blame. What is to blame is an abdication of political will and leadership. This is about values and what should matter more to us. What has a higher price for us, the cost of a royal commission or the cost of more lives destroyed?

They are sons and daughters who swore loyalty to the national flag—the one that's in this very chamber—and it was the greatest honour for those veterans to wear it on their shoulders. They are the sons and daughters who suffered so terribly much in a silent agony that they could bear no longer, the sons and daughters who saw no hope in holding on for another day, the sons and daughters who—on this very day, this very month—are struggling and contemplating the unthinkable. And they need us. They desperately need national leadership. Hope and faith are something this House can give them and something we can give them before returning from our break. For some of our sons and daughters, we hope this is not too late.