Australian war crime inquiry: Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester must speak up

Accountability should start at the top but Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester is being paid more than $365,000 a year to not say – or do – very much at all, Vikki Campion writes.

The world is denigrating our soldiers in trial by media over war crimes when the Afghan caliphate has killed more innocent civilians than the SAS ever did — while the minister paid more than $364,406 a year to represent their welfare in cabinet sat mute.

Our soldiers are away fighting a war where they don’t know who the enemy is, fighting an army with no uniform, no minimum age and no morals. Back in Australia, every week a veteran takes their own life.

Not only adult males bear weapons in Afghanistan, but women and children are strapped with bombs. Piles of rubbish are filled with explosives and captured soldiers beheaded on tape.

Releasing an internal Brereton inquiry, while redacted, to the public was a statement of transparency by the ADF chief, but until the accused soldiers are tried, these are allegations and the accused must be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Sources who have served in Afghanistan and who have read the unredacted Brereton Report urged me to be careful in my defence of soldiers because the internal inquiry would not have been released publicly without hard evidence to hand to the Australian Federal Police to investigate.

There is a high rate of suicide among Australian soldiers. Picture: Department of Defence

Being told to point a weapon at a human and extinguish their life in cold blood, goes against everything our soldiers are trained to do and if our senior SAS asked their juniors to do this, it is gutting for every defence family.

Our soldiers are making decisions under mortal threat in extreme climates and in that sort of conflict, there is collateral damage.

In Afghanistan, often the person shooting you is not a soldier with the same standards as you, but a pre-pubescent, from 11 years old, not a fanatic extremist who hates Australians — a kid who doesn’t understand.

Those who serve have a beef with those who send them to a war from air-conditioned safety, who have failed to explain to the public why they are there or provide adequate mental health support when they return.

Now on top of coping with PTSD, defence families are being hounded, their loved ones dubbed “child killers”.

The key cabinet minister, responsible for the welfare of defence force personnel and the veteran community, Darren Chester, had nothing to say about it for almost two weeks.

Only when pressure erupted in party rooms from colleagues expressing the overwhelming feeling by the community that they need to remain rock-solid behind our armed forces, did Chester speak.

Veterans’ Affairs Minister Darren Chester. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

It was not Chester who stood by Julie-Ann Finney, mother of Dave Stafford Finney who took his own life, when she powerfully called for a royal commission into veteran suicides, but his Labor shadow.

Each week a veteran takes their own life. If this does not warrant an independent investigation at arm’s length from government, then how do we justify the royal commission into pink batts where six people died?

My family tree, like many working-class regional families, is heavy with men who served, who went to war, who were blown up, who were paralysed for life, who were in the waves turning back the boats, who pulled dead refugees from the ocean, who found their mates in the midst of suicide, who had to cut the rope and try to breathe the life back in.

We must ask why so many returned servicemen are so haunted that they come home and take their own lives.

We must ask why it was only two returned servicemen Members of Parliament, Phil Thompson and Luke Gosling, who spoke up for soldiers on each side while the Minister was silent.

LNP Herbert MP Phil Thompson was severely injured by an IED in Afghanistan in 2009 — and has since buried 10 of his mates from suicide.

Labor Solomon MP Luke Gosling was a former commando who worked in Southern Afghanistan securing an election.

While Thompson and Gosling went to bat from the backbench, cabinet minister Chester could only put out a press release with four phone numbers for defence personnel and their families to call if they were struggling.

Accountability should start at the top – and cabinet minister Chester is being paid more than $365,000 a year to not say – or do – very much at all.