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

I rise to speak on this Australian Veterans' Recognition (Putting Veterans and Their Families First) Bill 2019. Like other members of the House, this is the second time that I've had the honour to speak on this important bill, which lapsed, of course, at the end of the last parliament. Labor were proud to support this bill then and we're proud to support it now.

The idea of a veterans' covenant was a policy pledged by Labor in September last year, based on the example of other countries and especially the UK. We were proud of this policy which pledged to support former and serving defence members by recognising the unique nature of military service and by giving government, business and the community a framework through which to do just that. We're proud to have shown national leadership on this issue, in close consultation with ex-service organisations, RSLs and DVA. It's commendable that the government has shown its support for the veterans covenant. We do have some reservations about the bill, which I'll return to shortly, but it's important to acknowledge that this is a vital area of multipartisan consensus, which we should celebrate and foster.

Veterans policy is close to my heart not just because I live in Darwin—Darwin and Palmerston being among the moment important defence towns in our nation. It is also a vital area of policy to me because it goes to the foundational question of our values as a people and as a democracy. This is, helpfully, reflected in the word itself: 'covenant'. For members like me, who didn't cut their teeth as legal practitioners before coming to this place, it's helpful to recall the distinction between a contract and a covenant. A thorough Google search yields free legal advice that they are different in a number of important ways. Contracts are about interests. They're utilitarian, commercial and legally enforceable promises: 'If you do this for me, I'll do that for you.' A covenant is about values. They have been described as spiritual agreements. They help us create selfless other-regarding relationships. A contract is an agreement you can break when it suits you. Most contracts have clauses stipulating how one party can terminate it, which is often all that's needed to opt out. A contract is not personal; it's just business.

But legal experts have called a covenant a perpetual promise. It can't be simply cancelled by a clever lawyerly arguments. A covenant can remain intact even if one party breaches it. For this reason is a covenant is not entered into lightly. It's not simply about advancing your own interests; it's about defending and promoting the interests of another. This gives covenants their most special quality: the fact that a covenant is not broken when one party walks away. The committed party can in fact continue to look after the other person even when they have given up. That can seem incredible and very impractical to us, but it points to the spiritual character of covenants. Another source, much older and more authoritative than Google, illustrates the archetypal covenant which most would be familiar with irrespective of their belief system:

And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

A lot of people will remember that. I think it's important to reflect on what we mean when we speak of a veteran's covenant in light of these words. It's of more than academic or theological interest. The covenant between our nation and our armed forces is constitutive of our values as a people and in turn the values on which our shared democratic institutions rest.

If we're honest, we have to recognise that the covenant between our nation and its armed forces was not always honoured and upheld equally by both parties. We do not need to attribute blame or to reopen any of those deep wounds in our community from the past—wounds that have, thankfully, mostly healed—but we should acknowledge the sad historical truth that, when the bonds between the nation and its uniformed men and women have been so strained, particularly during and after the Vietnam War, the lives of many of our veterans were profoundly disturbed, distressed and sometimes destroyed by this rupture. This is despite the fact that many Australian veterans of that war, as we know, were compelled by this House to serve; despite the fact that many veterans performed their military service with great distinction, whatever their views of that war were; and despite the fact that Australia's armed forces remained loyal in fulfilling their perpetual promise to our nation.

It's important to recall this sad chapter in our history today to reflect on how far we've come as a nation since the 1970s, because this bill is about more than the Commonwealth procuring a new let of lapel pins and veteran cards; it's about ensuring that the uniqueness of our veteran service and contribution is nationally recognised and enshrined in law. It's about guaranteeing that we never repeat past mistakes in impugning returned or serving soldiers' personal integrity for wars which they did not choose to enter into, a responsibility which can be attributed only to the government of the day. It's about upholding the principle that our veterans should never treated in a lesser way than non-serving Australians. That's the crux of this bill's intent. It's important to note what this bill is not about. Australian veterans certainly don't want to be treated as more important members of society than the rest. From my perspective that's true. They don't expect to be called to board aeroplanes first. That's not the ethos of the Australian Defence Force and it's certainly not the ethos of the Australian people. What all serving Defence members and veterans expect, and rightfully so, is to receive equal treatment before the law and that means recognising in federal legislation that military service is completely different to most civilian vocations.

For all of our bipartisan tributes to our veterans, what this House asks of current and former Defence members is still commonly misunderstood by the rest of society. We ask that Defence members give up a lot of personal autonomy and freedoms that other Australians enjoy and expect. We ask that they comply at all times with the orders of their chain of command on how to dress and where to live in Australia or overseas, often regardless of their preferences and usually at great cost to their personal and family lives. We ask and indeed expect that full-time and part-time Defence members, if called to do so by this government or this House, take up arms to protect Australia's strategic interests, and that they do violence professionally and ethically, with great restraint and great compassion, in the name of all Australians, whose flag they bear on their uniforms.

These requirements have preciously few parallels in civilian life. As my colleague the member for Eden-Monaro, Dr Mike Kelly, testified on this bill, before the election, 'Military service carries with it unique and often unavoidable risks and dangers to the member's person.' As Mike movingly said, 'Even training exercises can be fatal. Even wearing ill-fitting boots and load-carriage equipment, like packs, can grind or pulp well-nigh every joint in your body. Even if you do your drills correctly and observe all safety precautions, that's just the nature of the vocation.' But it's not just your body's joints that inevitably suffer. In many ways they're the more visible and treatable wounds. It's the psychological, family, community and social joints in the lives of current serving personnel and particularly veterans that become irreversibly dislocated, damaged or destroyed, often in the oppressive silence of returned service members who feel so misunderstood, marginalised and lost in a civilian culture that has no categories to begin to listen to, let alone understand, what they've experienced.

As the member for Eden-Monaro said, and I fully agree with him, 'Military service can make you feel like you literally speak a different language.' That's why social support, in the form of our ex-service organisations, RSLs and a properly resourced DVA, are so vital to achieving successful post-military reintegration. The psychosocial research is very clear on the fact that the onset of mental illness like PTSD is accelerated by civilian reintegration, especially where there is no support. The research shows that social support, post military service, is a key predictor of successfully preventing PTSD onset. That's why the lapel pins and the veterans cards that this bill will fund are important for our veterans. It's not about virtue signalling and certainly not about tokenism. It's about ensuring we can all recognise veterans among us and help to bear their burdens, which can metastasise in silence. It's about bringing society on board with the mission of supporting those whose job it is to keep our Commonwealth free, strong and safe from armed coercion and aggression.

Our armed forces exist to defend not only our interests but our values, our democracy and our national existence. This bill is ultimately about strengthening the bonds of our nation to ensure we can weather the violent storms that will come, which is why I am proud to support this bill, it's why Labor is proud to support this bill and it's why Labor is proud to have worked in tandem with the ex-service organisations and with the minister to take national leadership on this.

I noted Labor's reservations at the start of my remarks and these are longstanding and consistent. For one, we note that this bill does not cover those currently serving, which we see as a significant missing element. In addition, Labor has proposed that a reporting element be legislated requiring an annual statement to the House in relation to veterans and their loved ones. I note the minister recently gave a statement to the House. We were concerned about these omissions and referred this bill to a Senate inquiry to give veterans a chance to view the wording, provide input and be comfortable with the language. The Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade recommended on 22 March that the bill be passed. While we will not be moving any amendments to this bill, we continue to believe the current serving members and that a reporting element continue to be included for the life of this parliament.

Labor's commitment to those who serve or have served is rock-solid and, as such, we welcome changes which increase recognition for veterans and their loved ones. While important, this bill isn't the only priority for serving and former Defence personnel around our country. In the NT, for instance, we lack a dedicated service centre to support current and ex-serving Defence personnel, first responders and their families. As I did in the House last week, I acknowledge the minister's visit to Darwin recently to begin consulting to ensure that we do have a wellbeing centre. Lacking such a centre does put us at odds with defence communities across the country. I believe that, with the territory being so critical to our force posture, it is an issue of great demand and great urgency.

We have already done quite a bit of consultation, and it's great that that will be taken into account in the upcoming consultation. It's very important that such a wellbeing centre really cater for the families. They bear a great burden of the service that members of those families give to our nation. It will be an important link for those members to the broader community and to support services. It will also bring people with similar experiences and needs together. We need this wellbeing hub to connect people.

It is an urgent issue, and I appreciate that there will be more consultation to come, but I believe we owe it to our veterans and we owe it to our country to make sure, as this bill states:

The Commonwealth acknowledges that support for veterans should be provided in a way that respects their dignity as individuals, enhances their self-esteem, is sensitive to any physical or mental injury or disease they may have suffered and respects their military service

The reason for this, as the covenant itself concludes, is simple: 'For what they have done, this we will do.'

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