New agency to ensure Defence serving, veterans’ rights protected
A new watchdog agency to protect the rights of our Diggers will be created so veterans like Jesse Bird are not ignored.
National
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A new watchdog agency will be created to ensure the embattled rights of the nation’s military and veterans as exposed by a damning royal commission review are protected into the future.
On Thursday, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide catalogued a raft of failings by the Defence and Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) departments, in an interim report that made 13 recommendations.
There was evidence those failings, branded a national tragedy, contributed to the adverse mental health of veterans and those still serving — and in some cases led to their suicide bids.
But the Federal Government is likely to be forced to create a new agency to ensure the commission’s findings are followed, with evidence at least 50 similar military reviews were largely ignored by the departments and successive governments.
Commission chair Nick Kaldas said the second half of the inquiry, due to report in June 2024, would recommend a new entity.
“The solution is to recommend a mechanism or perhaps an entity to the government of the day about what should follow us,” he told News Corp Australia.
“We have a finite life but we want to recommend a body that will be there to ensure recommendations are followed up on and there isn’t a need in the long term to have further royal commissions. We want to solve these problems as best we can to leave a lasting legacy that will ensure these issues are dealt with in an ongoing basis long after we finish.”
Mr Kaldas said what shape or form it would take was not yet known and discussions were happening from now with stakeholders including Defence chiefs and veteran communities.
“We will have some really good ideas about this body and it cannot be a unilateral decision by us but a position reached through consultation and hopefully consensus with as broad a range as possible of stakeholders,” he said.
Mr Kaldas has sat, listened and or read through hundreds of stories and witness statements during the past 12 months of the inquiry, most harrowing, some troubling and others just outright upsetting.
But he said while he didn’t want to single anyone out there was one case that stood out — that of 32-year-old Jesse Bird.
The Afghan veteran took his life with just $5.20 in his bank account, weeks after losing a DVA claim for permanent impairment. That is despite Veterans Affairs initially accepting his PTSD and depression then spending two years stringing him along before cancelling his claim.
It was this case that made the former police officer Kaldas determined to see justice for veterans as he now begins the second two-year stint of the royal commission.
“I’ve got to tell you that Jesse Bird case … I mean all the stories on lived experience that we heard in public hearings were heart wrenching. I don’t want to say it’s been a difficult journey but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel great empathy for those who have bravely told their stories in public to illustrate the failings of the system,” he added.
“All the stories were harrowing, there were so many but Jesse Bird’s stuck out.”
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