Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Since 1999 we have lost 46 Australian servicemen on active duty in foreign fields. In the same period we have lost 239 returned servicemen who have taken their own lives on home soil. In the last 16 years we have lost five times as many servicemen on home soil as we have on the battlefield. We clearly have a problem with reintegrating our servicemen back into our society. We cannot send people off to war, to kill in our name and to face death and expect them to return to our society unchanged.

That brings me to the Veterans Motorcycle Club, who have a facility in my electorate at Menai, previously known as the Vietnam Veterans Motorcycle Club. They are being evicted from their premises at Menai by Ausgrid. They got a notice to quit the premises one day after Anzac Day. I call on the management of Ausgrid to show some social responsibility and some social leadership and to give the Veterans Motorcycle Club at least another six months.

See this speech in context