Federal election 2025: Navy hero John Armfield campaigns for Fadden

Navy hero John Armfield served Australia in Afghanistan, and now he wants to serve in parliament to give voice to a problem roiling the military.

Navy hero John Armfield served Australia in Afghanistan and now he hopes to serve in parliament to give voice to the complex mental health challenges roiling the military.

“There are three reasons I’m running,” he told NewsWire this week.

“One thing I want to achieve, I want to empower veterans to do what I am doing, to make change, because I am no different to any other veteran. I’m an enlisted sailor.

“The second thing, I want to empower Australians to understand, politicians are public servants. They serve them. “We’ve lost that, we’ve gone from service to rule. I want Australians to know that your politician serves you, you’ve got to demand they stand up for you.

“And third, I’m still looking for justice in this situation.

“This has given me a platform to call out failures in defence leadership. People are listening to me now.”

Where Mr Armfield mentions to “this situation”, he is referring to a tragedy that saw him become a central figure in the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

Mr Armfield lost his brother Andrew, an air force serviceman, to suicide in 2011.

He then suffered through his own mental health struggles 10 years after the traumatic event as he grappled with an internal inquiry into his brother’s death.

He served as a key witness in the royal commission, detailing his own confronting experiences with the ADF.

John Armfield testified at the Royal Commission about his experiences in the ADF. Picture: Supplied

Mr Armfield is campaigning in the 2025 federal election for the Queensland seat of Fadden. Picture: Supplied

In one instance, he told the commission how he drove to the post office to pick up a report into his brother’s death without any support in place to help him process the findings, which he said revealed serious failures in his brother’s care.

“I was sitting in my car, broken,” he said.

“I’d loyally served my nation and this is how they’d given me the report on my little brother’s death.

“I sat there and sobbed. I couldn’t take it home to my family.”

Mr Armfield is running for the Queensland seat of Fadden, which takes in the northern areas of the Gold Coast, with the conservative Gerard Rennick People First Party.

“I’d say we’re a common sense party that focuses on economic policy,” he said.

“Our policies focus on cost-of-living primarily, which is what we think is the major concern in Australia.”

Fadden is a safe Coalition seat, currently held by Cameron Caldwell.

Mr Armfield is on the campaign trail, doing “politics at the pub” events and meet-and-greets at coffee shops.

He said a recent “meet the candidates” event demonstrated how different he was from the other six candidates.

“Everyone was in support of the government banning children under 16 having access to social media, except for me,” he said.

“I don’t want the government reaching in and telling me how to raise my two kids, that’s my job as a parent.

“So it was really cool for my first time running in politics to be outside the norm of every other candidate.”

But military issues remain closest to his heart and he said he would push for veteran-centric policies if elected.

Mr Armfield said he would advocate for veteran-centric policies in parliament. Picture: Supplied

The Royal Commission has recommended 122 changes to improve mental health, including a marquee recommendation to establish a separate, independent entity with responsibility for preventing suicide deaths among Defence and veteran personnel.

There is bipartisan support for the reform and Defence Minister Richard Marles has said the federal government will establish the legislated oversight body by September 2025.

Mr Armfield is critical of the government’s movement on the issue.

“Right now, 122 recommendations and you can’t implement one? You can’t do one?” he told NewsWire.

He also expressed concern about any deployment of Australian soldiers to Ukraine.

“He (Anthony Albanese) is talking about boots on the ground,” he said.

“We just lost a 20-year war. No one wants to talk, we lost that war.

“We have not as a nation discussed lessons learned, how did we lose that war, why were we there in the first place?”