Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In 2015, the Greens initiated the first Senate inquiry into veteran suicides in this country. I and members of this chamber travelled all around the country and heard heartbreaking stories about the struggles that vets were going through, particularly when they left the Defence Force and were passed onto the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Senator Lambie also initiated an inquiry following that which followed up a lot of the information that we uncovered. We fully support better services for veterans—it's the cost of war that often goes unseen in this country—but we can't support $500 million being given to the Australian War Memorial. I've personally had discussions with Dr Brendan Nelson about this. The Greens have opposed the money going to the War Memorial because we don't want to see Operation Sovereign Borders, for example, being given its own exhibition in the Australian War Memorial and that kind of cruelty and inhumane treatment of refugees being normalised in this country as part of a propaganda war that this government is fighting. So we support parts (b) and (c) but not part (a). (Time expired)