Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

(1) (a) and (2) (a) and (c) The following table summarises the numbers of suicides of Australian Defence Force (ADF) members by Service, from 1996 to 2011.

Table 1: Australian Defence Force Suicides From 1997-2011.

(i) It should be noted that a number of cases from recent years are suspected suicides that require coronial confirmation of cause of death, and as such, these figures are subject to change.

(ii) This information does not include Reserve personnel, unless on full-time service at time of death.

(b) Management and reporting on ex-service personnel falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA).

DVA only records a reason for death where the cause of death is relevant to a claim for compensation. DVA’s data is based on accepted claims under the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988.

There are circumstances in which the cause of death is not relevant for provision of compensation (eg an automatic grant of war widows pension), and other circumstances where no claim is received relating to a death (eg where a deceased veteran has no dependants). In such circumstances DVA does not record the cause of death.

Within the caveats listed above, to date DVA has recorded a total of 88 deaths by suicide occurred during the period 1 January 1996 and to 30 April 2011. As these statistics are based on death claims determined, should further claims for compensation for death by suicide be lodged in respect of any death that occurred during the period in question, the numbers may change in the future. In respect of each calendar year, the number of recorded deaths by suicide are as follows:

Some of these deaths would have occurred whilst the deceased was still serving in the ADF, which means that they would also be included in Table 1. However, to determine which of these deaths occurred whilst the deceased was serving in the ADF would require interrogation of individual files.

(3) (a) and (b) As the ADF does not currently have a centralised electronic health record, it is not possible to identify how many individuals have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) over the past 15 years. The following data is however provided:

(i) Data are collected centrally regarding the medical conditions for which individuals are referred to the Medical Employment Classification Review Board (MECRB) of their Service. When ADF members are considered to be no longer medically fit for deployment, they are referred to the MECRB for consideration of their continued service.

(ii) Data collection within Joint Health Command commenced in 2002 with the primary aim of workflow monitoring. The data collected under that system have limited utility in analysing trends in particular medical conditions, so are indicative only.

(iii) The following table summarises the numbers of Medical Employment Classification Review Board (MECRB) Determinations for individuals with a diagnosis of PTSD by year (2002 to 2007) and Service.

Table 2: Number of MECRB Determinations for individuals with a diagnosis of PTSD by year and Service.

(iv) Throughout 2007, data collection was transitioned to a more robust system which was better designed to monitor medical conditions being presented to MECRB as well as workflow.

(v) The following table summarises the numbers of members presented to MECRB with PTSD between 2007 and 2010.

Table 3: Number of members presented to MECRB with PTSD between 2007 and 2010.

(vi) Fluctuations or variations in figures over specific time periods need to be interpreted with caution. A spike in any one period does not necessarily mean that there has been an increase in cases of illness in any given period of time. It means that there has been an increase in the number of individuals receiving determinations from their MECRB in that time period and nothing more. From time to time, MECRB clear back logs of cases, resulting in increased determinations over the following time period.

(vii) It must be noted that these data represent the cases determined by MECRB in each year, and may contain some duplicates i.e. an individual may have been presented to MECRB more than once. Approximately 85 per cent of these cases involved multiple medical conditions, of which PTSD was one.

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