Julie-Ann Finney should help create terms of reference for veteran suicides royal commission

The Royal Commission into Veteran Suicides is the result of tireless work by a heartbroken mother and one man. They must help to determine its terms of reference, writes Vikki Campion.

Tomorrow is the first Anzac Day we have been allowed to attend since 2019 — last year we watched dawn break from our driveways — and on its eve Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Defence Minister Peter Dutton announced a Royal Commission into Veteran Suicides to a sceptical public.

This royal commission is not the result of any single politician, rather a mother and a man — who unlike the other lobbyists in the halls of Parliament House, went unpaid, digging deep into the last of their savings to fund their flights and accommodation to Canberra, visiting MPs and Senators, begging for meetings with ministers, all to stop our nation losing more defence lives off the battlefield than on.

Julie-Ann Finney visits the grave of her son Dave. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Brenton Edwards

Senator Jacqui Lambie led the charge with a Senate motion, where the mother, Julie-Ann Finney, and the man, Voice of a Veteran founder Heston Russell, united Labor, the Greens and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

When the motion went to the lower house, the plan was for independents Craig Kelly and Bob Katter to join Labor, Greens and a handful of government backbenchers preparing to cross the floor.

The legislation never made it to the chamber — the government’s hand had been forced.

Now the royal commission has been announced but for Ms Finney the battle might be won but the war has just begun.

She has a committee of legal experts and veterans’ families ready to inform the terms of reference because there is no point in a royal commission if it’s the government interviewing itself.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the royal commission this week. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Jeremy Piper

In the halls of parliament, doors closed in her face. She begged but got silence. The government must listen to her this time.

It should examine the impact of the failure to fund allied health properly, as well as the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme, where the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has ripped off superannuation entitlements of those who served.

It should examine the gulf between the departments of Defence and Veterans’ Affairs, where veterans in a bad place have to self-refer to obtain any help, often needing assistance just to get past the bureaucratic maze from the mental health ward.

Above all, it must listen to the veterans and their families.

Ms Finney went to the cemetery to tell her son. What she fights for is underground.

She gave the defence force a “beautiful healthy boy”, they handed her back a dead body. At his funeral, she had to buy the flag. They folded it and handed it back.

Royal Australian Navy petty officer Dave Finney, who suicided in February 2019.

This mother birthed an Anzac, and on his death went to war with the authorities who may not have directly killed him but threw him no lifeline.

For others, we lose our brothers and sons not in death but in a transformation that occurs so profoundly that the person you kiss goodbye at recruitment, you never see again.

They are stripped and rebuilt to become highly trained warriors.

“Either you can’t switch your humanity off to the point that top brass wants you to or you can’t switch it back on again,” one tells me at a country RSL.

Basic training removes your sense of identity because being a soldier, a sailor or pilot is not a job, it’s your entire life — and when that is lost, so too is self-worth, self-belief and (they think) their contribution to society.

None go into Defence believing they won’t be hungry, tired, sore, wet and uncomfortable.

But nothing can prepare you for boarding a boat and watching people smugglers throw children into the sea so that you will save drowning babes dropping like rocks, and they can escape. Nothing can prepare you for the squalid conditions of the boat you boarded, the stench that fills your nostrils until you board the next boat.

No amount of training stops the haunting.

Dave Finney’s mum Julie-Ann Finney and Voice of a Veteran founder Heston Russell fought tirelessly for this royal commission. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

After 12 months of jungle warfare, sent down dark tunnels underground with just a pistol and a torch, one vet tells how he was discharged at Holsworthy, handed $20 for a taxi and told to “f*ck off”.

Decades later, he still looks for ambush sites, choke points and escape routes.

In the supermarket this week, Mr Russell is pulled up three times by those telling him their story.

These stories deserve to be heard by more than just the grocery aisle.

We have one of the best defence forces in the world and we have a parliament which set aside differences in politics to do the right thing. If we truly are genuine about honouring the Anzac spirit, the bravery of those who put on the uniform, those who feel discarded or cut from the corps, then this time the ministers must listen to the mother and the man and allow them to help determine the terms of reference.

To those we promised we wouldn’t name, the mute man bitter at his memories in the mental health ward, please know: We are in awe of what you have done, not just on a patriotic level but a personal one.

We respect you as a former soldier, sailor, pilot and as a person.

And tomorrow we remember them all, together.