Julie-Ann Finney’s big week on the campaign for a royal commission into military suicide
The extraordinary week in a remarkable year for Adelaide mother and grandmother Julie-Ann Finney, who has campaigned relentlessly for a royal commission into veteran suicide.
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Saturday, February 1
It was the day Julie-Ann Finney had been dreading the most.
The one-year anniversary of the death by suicide of her loving, talented, second child and only son David Finney.
A landmark day that signalled an entire year without her boy: a father of two, a brother to five siblings and a hero to those he served with in the Australian Military. David saved lives.
His naval commendation for bravery for extinguishing a fire in 2004 on the HMAS Tobruk that threatened the ship and hundreds on board is a testament to that.
And then there is the testimony in letters and messages from dozens of veterans suffering post-traumatic stress that he helped give strength and comfort.
Julie-Ann’s story campaigning for a royal commission into the scourge of veteran suicide begins – and will end – with her son.
She hadn’t planned anything for the anniversary day and was surprised to discover her ex-husband, David’s father, was in Adelaide.
Grant Finney, father of four boys from his second marriage, had made the journey down from his Queensland home.
Grant and Julie-Ann’s daughter Jaimie, David’s elder sister, had arranged everything.
Grant wanted a headstone for David because, to date, there is only a wooden cross with a metal plaque with his name and dates at his Golden Grove grave.
“I wanted to keep the cross but Jaimie said it was badly sun-damaged,” Julie-Ann says.
“I hadn’t realised because I hadn’t been out there since we buried him. I felt I needed something to change before I could go to him.”
There was complete agreement about the headstone.
Grant had written the epitaph but happily changed “beloved” to “loved” to please his first wife.
“It was all wonderful and Grant was excellent,” Julie-Ann says. “He wanted no photo because he didn’t want the sense of David looking out all alone. I got that straight away so we agreed ‘no photo’.”
After ordering the stone, the family headed out for dinner.
Grant and Jaimie left to visit David’s grave and later Julie-Ann headed back to the pub, alone, about 8pm. There, she did something she has rarely done. She played the pokies – and she played until 3am.
Sunday, February 2
The time of 3am is significant. It was the exact moment, the year before, in the dead of night, that Julie-Ann was woken at her Blair Athol home, with a loud knocking and a declaration it was a policeman at the door.
Walking from her bedroom to the door, she prayed they had come to arrest her. That she had done something wrong. But the look on the young policeman’s face told of her worst nightmare. David was dead.
“Ever since, even now when a police car pulls up in the street, I just want to scream and scream,” she says.
“It’s a fear and terror like I can’t explain.
“I can’t bear to relive those hours.”
If Julie-Ann felt she had survived the anniversary day, the Sunday proved to be her greatest torment.
She had played the machines in complete isolation to empty her mind – to think of nothing more than pushing a button and watching the wheels turn. To feel numb.
Exhausted and feeling violently ill, she headed home for some fitful sleep.
The rest of the day is a wipe-out, one she can’t process. But she remembers one moment.
She had been terrified of looking at David’s Facebook page and the last message she sent. It would be too cruel if it was in any way critical or trite.
This day she went searching. Her message was written at 10pm on January 29, 2019, less than 48 hours before his death. It reads: “David, I remain so proud of you. I know some days you want to give up but instead you teach us all so much.”
Monday, February 3
Monday morning brought relief with something important to get her out of bed – delivering for the charity Nonna’s Cucina that cooks meals fresh each day for the vulnerable.
Julie-Ann volunteers five days a week running the northern delivery route from Royal Park to Smithfield. “When I started, they asked if I could cook and I had to tell them all their clients would be dead if I did,” she says with a laugh.
In the afternoon, she ordered stubbie holders – 200 of them – as a present for David’s 40th birthday that would have been on February 17.
“It’s the same present I bought for his 30th birthday with his name and face on,” she says.
“Except he won’t be in a wig and rollerskates this time.”
She spent time on a public function she’s organised in Canberra on February 22, a ticketed event for 100 with all proceeds going to David’s favourite charities Menslink and Camp Quality.
And she used her newly found electronic skills to answer the daily avalanche of communications with veterans, supporters and politicians on email, Facebook and Messenger. Many derive from her petition for a royal commission that in just nine months, has seen more than 282,000 Australians sign online.
Then it was early to bed for a 4.30am rise for the red-eye flight to Melbourne to attend the summation at the Coroner’s court into the suicide death of army veteran Jesse Bird.
Tuesday, February 4.
When Daily Telegraph photographers arrived at the court especially to take her photo, she didn’t understand why.
“I joked with everyone that I had a modelling contract,” she says.
She flew in to Melbourne and back the same day to support Karen Bird, Jesse’s mother. “I gain strength from her – she’s amazing and so articulate,” she says.
“There’s no hysteria, just a sadness and a strength about her. But you can see the toll it has taken.”
She left disappointed because the Bird family must wait a further three months for a judgment.
The flight back to Adelaide was delayed and Julie-Ann was fretting about making a dinner date with Labor MP Tony Piccolo as a follow-up to a meeting with SA Labor leader Peter Malinauskas, who had echoed the commitment of federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese in supporting her call for a royal commission.
As she rushed out of Adelaide Airport for the taxi rank, the phone rang. It was Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
“I thought he was ringing about my petition and was stunned to hear him detail his plans for an independent commissioner to investigate veteran suicide,” she says.
“I felt a little bit sick because I didn’t understand it and was trying to take it all in. Was this a royal commission by another name?
“In those moments, I just trust my process, which is ‘one day at a time’.
“And I was scared. I thought, ‘I’m not ready to not have purpose’.”
They spoke for eight minutes, including about Mr Morrison’s own recent bereavement with the death of his father, John Morrison.
As soon as she hung up, she knew what she had to do – go and tell David.
It was already getting dark and cold but this moment couldn’t wait and she drove out to Golden Grove.
By the grave, she stayed resolute.
“This was not my time to go there and cry – it was my time to go there and be amazingly proud,” she says. “I told David, ‘if it wasn’t for him this would not be happening’.
“I said, ‘there are not words strong enough to tell you David that you mattered. And wow, I get to be your mum. You’re amazing – always were’.
“In that moment, I felt, I had made them (the authorities) listen about my boy, what he was like, how incredible he was.”
As she drove back home, she wanted to wake up knowing that what the PM was promising was everything she had campaigned.
Wednesday, February 5.
Sleep was patchy but with the Prime Minister’s early announcement the next morning, she had to be at The Advertiser building in Waymouth St at 9.30am for an interview with Sky News.
Don’t tell anyone but she woke in the clothes she wore the night before and didn’t have time to change.
It was the first of 15 interviews that day including ABC Radio National, The Project, 7.30 and Richo and Jones, again on Sky.
And yes, she did manage to get home for a wardrobe change at some stage.
I caught up with her briefly in the morning when The Advertiser filmed some video grabs about her reaction to the announcement.
During that frantic time, in the middle of calls from across the country for interviews, she took a text message from a young female veteran who has been considering taking her own life, saying she was in panic. Julie-Ann typed back to hold on and that she had her back.
Climbing into bed just before midnight on a day few Australians have ever encountered, at the centre of a significant national milestone, she fell asleep with an empty feeling that “something doesn’t feel right”.
Thursday and Friday, February 6, 7.
The whirlwind has continued with hundreds of phone calls and messages. All along there has been a growing uneasiness about the Prime Minister’s plan.
She has asked to meet Mr Morrison to clarify the process and what it all means.
Julie-Ann has been very close with Tasmania’s Senator Jacqui Lambie and her total rejection of an independent commissioner was an important contribution.
Julie-Ann is following her process of one day at a time.
“I thought with this announcement, I could put my son to rest but maybe there is still a way to go,” she says. “It could turn out this is just week one of the next chapter.
“I don’t want to seem ungrateful but David’s aim was for help for all veterans. We’re not done with David’s story until that is achieved.”
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Julie-Ann Finney has her feet firmly on the ground – with good reason.
Hearing just before Christmas that her grandmother had won the inaugural The Advertiser Woman of the Year Award, Julie-Ann’s young granddaughter told her: “You’re still just a nutcase to me”.
She laughs heartily at that recollection.
You’ve got to have a certain frantic craziness to achieve what Julie-Ann has in such a short time.
You also need an iron will and a fanatical determination your cause is just.
But as she says, through it all, she’s still “just” a mum. “I don’t mean just in a bad way but I haven’t changed from that person I was a year ago,” she told me. And she hasn’t.
We were driving late at night this week to David’s grave to tell him Prime Minister Scott Morrison would soon announce an independent commissioner into veteran suicide.
It was a remarkable moment, a privilege for me, and something we had spoken about since first meeting 10 months before.
She was suffering terrible grief that day last April, trembling like a leaf, but when she said she would campaign for a royal commission, I’d only known her an hour when I told her she could make it happen.
Earlier this month, she was despairing that her mission had hit a brick wall.
That the Government and military were stalling and resisting her campaign that is backed by hundreds of thousands of Australians, including untold numbers of veterans.
Days later came the phone call from Mr Morrison. It is yet to unfold if the PM’s announcement of an independent commissioner is a satisfactory outcome but if it’s not, he will have one feisty Adelaide grandmother to combat.
At David’s funeral last year, one of his sister’s friends heard about Julie-Ann’s plans to push for a royal commission.
“You’d want to be one of Mrs Finney’s kids,” she said. “Because she’ll get it done. She won’t stop until she does.”