Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion, and I thank my friend the member for Herbert, Cathy O'Toole, for moving this motion on a topic that is quite close to me personally and to our team. During my 13 years of service in our Defence Force I saw firsthand the immeasurable commitment and sacrifices made by our personnel, and I saw firsthand the detriment that prolonged service can have on individual personnel and their families. Support services for veterans have come a long way. It is worth remembering that for a long time it was the family unit that had to carry the burden of life after war, like operational service in particular, and it was up to the family to try and start healing the scars caused by service to our country. It is necessary service to our country, but it is not without cost.

I was reflecting after the speeches about the West Gate Bridge tragedy earlier today, at the start of question time, that my dad and his family lived not far from the West Gate Bridge—in fact, it was only a matter of months after dad had returned to Vietnam that that big section of the bridge came down—but also that my pop, my father's father, who worked in the bottle factory that was a stone's throw from where the bridge came down, lived with his own trauma from his service in the Second World War. Both of them were infantrymen and both lost mates in battle. It was a reminder that it is the families who bear the burden.

In the Northern Territory we have many of these families. The Northern Territory is home to 8.1 per cent of Australia's permanent ADF personnel. When you include the families, we are looking at about 12,000 people out of our relatively small city. The defence community has always been vital in the north, and in Darwin in particular. You don't have to look any further in the past than Cyclone Marcus to see the fantastic support provided by the ADF to our community. We also had US marines assisting us during the clean-up of the cyclone. I was recently in Washington DC and passed on our community's thanks to the United States Marine Corps for their assistance in the aftermath of Cyclone Marcus.

I just want to mention what I'm doing personally, because words are one thing but actions are what really count. I want to—and we will, because we are without a support centre in the Northern Territory—form a support centre for not only current and former members of the ADF but also first responders in our community and their families. As a community we value that service, and we will make sure that there is somewhere off-base—away from the workplaces of police, firemen, ambos, people who work in border protection and the members of our ADF—where those people and their families will be able to reach out and get support. That is a commitment.

I want to touch quickly on the veterans' employment policy because it's also important. The best thing, I think, that we can do for our veterans is help them into work or study. We need to make sure that we're supporting our veterans, and I'm proud that our team has got a comprehensive veterans' employment policy. I'm also proud that recently we announced, as the member for Herbert said, the military covenant, which will recognise the immense commitment of our armed forces to our nation.

Finally, I want to mention that I recently joined with the Families of the Fallen—the families of those that we lost in the long years in Afghanistan—and it was great to be with them as they provided solidarity for each other. That support for our families is so important. It's vital, and that's what I am committed to for my electorate.

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