Veterans welcome $5m pledge to bring allied health to Illawong Beach hub

RSL leaders welcome LNP’s $5 million commitment to bring allied health to important “neglected” veteran community.

RSL Mackay sub-branch president Ken Higgins, vice-president Mark Preston, MP Andrew Willcox and Shadow Minister for Veteran Affairs, Barnaby Joyce. Photo: Kate Johnson

A new $5 million Veteran Hub could bring much needed health support to the Mackay veteran community after “many years” of being “neglected”.

The funding, promised by the LNP, would establish a new Veterans’ and Families’ Hub at the 70-year-old Illawong Beach hub’s building, providing allied health along with new facility upgrades.

Mackay RSL sub-branch president Ken Higgins says the new pledge would be a great step in the right direction in providing allied health to veterans and frontline workers. Picture: Heidi Petith

RSL Mackay sub-branch president Ken Higgins said it would help fill a major gap in medical welfare facilities for veterans in the region.

“We think this is a great facility, but it needs money,” Mr Higgins said.

“We’ve got very little (health facilities) and this will be a step in the right direction to correct that with a gymnasium, allied health facility and the beach over the road, and just somewhere where vets, their families, young and old, can come and be safe, be secure and that camaraderie will follow on from there.

“We’ve got a great group of veterans around us and their families, young, middle-aged and older veterans, and that’s the demographic that we’ve got to cater for and we will do that.”

Mr Higgins said he hoped a new facility complex would cater for programs run by exercise physiologists, psychiatrists and wellbeing advocates.

MP Andrew Willcox reaffirmed the funding alongside veterans’ affairs spokesman Barnaby Joyce Tuesday morning, saying it was a “long time in the making”.

“I think it’s the very least that we can do for these fine men and women that have served and that when they come home that we look after them, we value them and that’s exactly what this hub will do,” Mr Willcox said.

Keith Payne, OAM, talking to Ken Higgins and Barnaby Joyce about veterans’ affairs at the Illawong RSL hub. Photo: Luke Lay

This commitment was also earmarked during the 2022 election but ultimately fell short of receiving any funding from Canberra.

Mr Higgins previously called for greater support for veterans - old and young - after welcoming the Albanese Government’s establishment of a Defence and Veteran Service Commission last year.

Victorian Cross recipient Keith Payne, who has a psychiatric unit in his name at the Greenslopes Private Hospital, said more needed to be done to help veterans and first responders suffering from PTSD.

“The KPU (Keith Payne Unit) has to be brought up-to-date to cover up the intake of the veteran community into the future,” he said.

The funding commitment has not yet been matched by Labor candidate Neil Wallace though Mr Higgins said after speaking with Labor’s Special Envoy for Defence, Veterans’ Affairs and Northern Australia, Luke Gosling, there would be bipartisan support to secure grant money for Illawong.

This publication launched the Hub for Our Heroes in March 2021, exposing the overwhelming number of veterans at risk of suicide when facing transition to civilian life after active service.

Mackay RSL sub-branch president Ken Higgins said the region lacked an RSL venue that connected veterans both socially and to essential services after the city’s RSL club shut in 2006.

PTSD Frontline chairman and emergency doctor Peter Wirth said first responders and veterans suffered to serve their communities and were then often adrift when their jobs ended.