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

As the Federation Chamber now prepares to adjourn for the final time for this sitting fortnight, I can't help but reflect on this place as an institution. Our parliament, if it were to be considered an employer, employs a grand total of 19 veterans as members and senators. This is around 8.3 per cent of the total population of parliamentarians. This can be contrasted with the results from the 2021 ABS census, which found a few interesting stats in this space. It measured that 581,100 Australians had served in the Australian Defence Force. That's 2.8 per cent of the population. This number rises slightly when measured as dwellings that contained at least one person who had served in the ADF, or one person who had served previously in the ADF, which amounted to 5.3 per cent of Australia's population.

Whilst on face value you could say that parliament's population is overrepresented compared to what was in the most recent census, I feel that we could always welcome more veterans into our ranks. It is an especially important time to be both a veteran and a member of this place, given that the final report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide is due to be handed down in less than a year's time. Whether or not you can consider this place to be an employer is up for debate, but not for today, for I'm here to speak on a number of ordinary veteran employers who do extraordinary things, making a meaningful impact in the lives of veterans and their families as they make the adjustment towards civilian life.

That transition is quite often fraught with complications. It's different for each veteran going down this road. However, several common denominators are often present. Some employers take proactive steps to engage and hire veterans, taking full note that veterans are a unique, diverse and high-performing cohort within our workforce, waiting to be tapped into. The Department of Veterans' Affairs' Veteran Employment Program provides employers with the option to make a commitment to Australia's veteran population by signing the Veterans' Employment Commitment. By doing so, these employers are making a commitment to veterans that their workplace is one that provides career opportunities to those who have served our nation, one that strives to find ways to translate the long years, in many instances, of intense training that a veteran has undertaken in the ADF to a civilian role that not only adds value to the organisation but also adds a great sense of purpose to the veteran's civilian career. Those businesses can proudly display the fact they signed the commitment for all to see, but they can also be searched for at veteransemployment.gov.au.

However, some companies and organisations are model veteran employers because they're also run by veterans, offering a nurturing environment where any newly-hired veteran will be able to take comfort in the fact that their workmates are also their peers—people who have experienced similar emotions and challenges as they're experiencing with the move away from their career in the ADF. Over the winter break, I had the pleasure of meeting Ben from Bluerydge at my electorate office. Bluerydge is a company that fits this sort of workplace to a tee—a company whose ranks comprise 70 per cent ex-ADF personnel and whose CEO, Jim Boekel, is ex-Army himself.

Bluerydge provides specialist cybersecurity and technology services to government and to Defence. It's working with the City of Playford in my electorate of Spence to assist them with their digital transformation and assisting the council to bridge the gap with Defence, which has always been important in the northern suburbs of Adelaide—the proud home of RAAF Edinburgh. Late last year, Bluerydge was announced as the Outstanding Employer of the Year 2022 as part of the Prime Minister's National Veterans' Employment Awards.

I couldn't be happier to have firms, such as Bluerydge, that are both veteran led and veteran driven engaging with our businesses in Spence. That includes firms such as Aimpoint RPL, an established training organisation that operates within the defence industry space. Mark Robinson, the executive director of Aimpoint, has shown real leadership in promoting the north of Adelaide as a defence industry powerhouse through his involvement with the Edinburgh Industry Alliance. Seeing companies like this grow has an added benefit attached: it's very likely that the lion's share of new employees who get taken on have, like many of their coworkers, successfully transitioned from the ADF to stable and gainful civilian employment. I thank the House.