Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

What an unfortunate episode the article in the Sydney Morning Herald represents. At no time have I discredited nor will I discredit the service of previous members of the ADF or serving members of the ADF. In fact, that rather long interview was about carrying forward the best military traditions of the ADF and recognising the demands placed on serving members, past and present—that it is a place for high-calibre individuals. The Sydney Morning Herald, in trying to summarise a 45-minute interview in a summary paragraph of its writing, not mine, left some with the impression that I was discrediting past or serving members of the ADF. I have taken that issue up with the Sydney Morning Herald. To the credit of the Sydney Morning Herald, they have quite accurately said that I never said that any serving or past members of the ADF were misfits. I never said that and the Sydney Morning Herald has made that clear. I welcome the opportunity to again make that point, as I did to the national congress of the Vietnam veterans in Nerang. I would welcome anybody who is interested in the circumstances of that to contact me because that is so at odds with everything I have said and everything I believe. I am grateful to the member for Bruce for giving me the opportunity to put that on the record.

The second area he asked about was the sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans health study. He would be aware that the feasibility study has now been completed. There was some considerable discussion, debate, disagreement—argy-bargying, if I could put it that way—in the preparation of that feasibility study, involving a scientific advisory committee and a consultative committee. The report that has come to me points to some risks, some concerns, some hazards about undertaking certain kinds of research and proposes that we undertake a pilot study, which of itself would take a number of years to complete, just to see if the methodology that people think might work will actually reveal some new insights.

What I know is that there are sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans who need help now. To sit back and procrastinate for a number of years in the hope of a full study that may lead to some new insights I think is to do a disservice to the Vietnam veteran community and their sons and daughters. What I have targeted is a more staged approach that can get earlier insights sooner, that enables us to respond to those insights as they arise, adapt and change our services to meet those new insights, and then go further on with the research. This is a stepping forward process. That will get us meaningful results sooner and we can better target our health and support programs for the sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans and we can extend that study as far as it needs to go to find the insights that we are looking for to make sure that we get services delivered and parallel research as well.

One of the things that concerned me about the scientific advisory committee’s analysis was questions about control groups and whether a safe scientific research project would possibly exclude members of the Air Force and the Navy. I am not going to agree to a study that risks treating serving personnel differently on the basis of the service that they undertook. I am also not going to conduct a study which may not be helpful to the veterans community because it has not taken account of the healthy soldier effect. The shadow minister would know that we only recruit healthy people. If we cannot find a comparative group that takes account of the fact that we start with a healthier cohort in the community of the serving personnel than the broader community then some of those analytical comparisons might mask the very insights we are looking for.

I have been in extensive discussions with members of the scientific advisory committee, my own department, the Repatriation Commission, some of the individuals, Mr and Mrs Parker as an example on the consultative committee, saying, ‘Here’s how I think we can move this forward.’ I have been encouraged by their response and they tell me they are encouraged by my desire to get something constructive happening. One final comment, though, is that there is a body of non-veteran related research too which I think might be instructive. How do we make sure that insights gained in the broader community can be brought to bear on what is very much a veterans related body of work helping the sons and daughters of people who served in Vietnam? That is where that is heading and I am happy to keep you informed of the progress.

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