ADF Veteran suicide: Veterans’ Affairs Minister says no to royal commission
Veterans’ Affairs Minister says he will not support a royal commission into veteran suicides, despite meeting with a grieving mother for the second time in Canberra.
NSW
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Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester says he will not support a royal commission into veteran suicides, despite meeting with a grieving mother for the second time in Canberra yesterday.
Julie-Ann Finney, who has collected 264,000 signatures calling for a royal commission since her Navy poster-boy son Dave took his own life in February, met with Darren Chester and DVA secretary Liz Cosson.
“I told Mr Chester that the only support to deny a Royal Commission came from ex-service organisations and the government and that their reasoning was not valid,” she said.
“I asked him to come out and support a royal commission because now is the time. While the initiatives are great, they don’t investigate the issues.”
“He said he still doesn’t support one because it will bog the DVA down for two years. I said you can’t just bury hundreds of our bravest and not investigate their deaths.”
Ms Finney made it clear that a Royal Commission would not only be investigating the DVA, but also the Defence Force and other organisations dedicated to helping veterans.
“Mr Chester said he would rather fix the veterans’ issues now, but I said are you then going to have hundreds of coronial inquests? And he said yes if that’s what it takes,” she said.
“I am glad he met with me but how many more signatures and deaths do we need? The DVA are doing the best they can but it’s just bandaids over bandaids.
“We need to investigate the beginning all the way to end, otherwise we will have more people coming out of the Defence Force broken.”
A spokesman for Mr Chester said: “I appreciated the opportunity to meet with Ms Finney again, but it was a private meeting and out of respect it would not be appropriate to comment.”
Mr Chester first met with Ms Finney in June at his Adelaide office where she spoke about the systematic failures and the hundreds of Defence Force veteran suicides that have occurred in recent years.
Australia’s most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has recently backed a royal commission into veteran suicides saying it would allow an open and transparent look at the leadership of Defence, who he accused of protecting their own careers rather than helping soldiers suffering psychologically.
The Daily Telegraph has backed Ms Finney’s call for a Royal Commission and at a summit in Sydney earlier this month the Berejiklian government backed the calls for a Royal Commission.
Acting Veterans Affairs Minister Geoff Lee told the summit: “The system is broken. The NSW government is committed to supporting this call for a Royal Commission. Clearly we must do better.”
Last week, Ms Finney met with Current Chief of Army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell and Defence Minister Linda Reynolds.
It comes after RSL national president Greg Melick was slammed earlier this month for saying a Royal Commission would cost “an enormous amount of money” that could be better spent in other areas to assist veterans.
Ms Finney said when Prime Minister Scott Morrison met with her and five other mothers at The Daily Telegraph’s Save Our Heroes Summit, he made it clear that money would not be an issue.
Originally published as ADF Veteran suicide: Veterans’ Affairs Minister says no to royal commission
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