Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the motion put by the member for Herbert. I want to acknowledge his service and I want to acknowledge the service of the member for Solomon and the member for Braddon, who are in this chamber tonight, and of course all the members and senators who have represented this country in uniform. I've never served in uniform, but I have a great respect and affinity for those that have. I recently held an event for veterans to make an announcement in my own electorate. A young veteran by the name of Peter Kennedy spoke at that event. I thought his words were very salient.

He said: 'Veterans: we have a few scratches. Some of us are a little bent out of shape. But, if you work with us and help us back into shape, you're going to get a great product for a long time. Veterans value, and in fact embody, the values of respect, loyalty, teamwork and integrity—everything we would want in an upstanding citizen and a great employee.'

Sadly, the statistics are very, very sobering when it comes to men's suicide, because it's in the very large part men who have served in the ADF who have taken their own life. What is very telling are the stats. When men serve in the ADF—and it might sound like I'm being sexist, but it's only because what the stats reveal about the men who have taken their lives—they actually have a 48 per cent lower chance than civilians their own age of taking their lives. When they are in the services there's a 48 per cent less chance. But when they discharge, that 48 per cent less jumps to an increase of 18 per cent over and above what the rates are for civilian men who they take their own lives. So something is going very wrong here.

When men and women serve in the ADF—and I want to acknowledge my friend who's just entered the chamber for his service as well, the member for Stirling—they have that sense of purpose and a great sense of mission and a sense of tribe that is probably beyond anything else that we see in the civilian world. Perhaps the closest we might see to it is in the police force. They belong to that tribe, and the tribe is everything to them. Then, maybe it's because of their own doing or maybe because they've been discharged for medical reasons or whatever it might be, they lose that sense of tribe. They lose that sense of purpose. One minute the Australian government was entrusting them to fly, drive or sail multimillion-dollar, perhaps even multibillion-dollar, equipment, and there's a great degree of self-respect that comes with that. But when they discharge and they lose that sense of identity, sadly—and this is not all—some have trouble getting a job the very next day. Why is that? How do we work with this? The best way, in my view, to deal with suicide is to ensure that we provide meaningful jobs and that we as a government, we as a nation, respect the skills that they have learnt.

I want to address very quickly the commission that has been set up. It is better than a royal commission because it has the powers of a standing royal commission. Royal commissions have start dates and end dates. A standing royal commission just does that—it will go on and will address each and every suicide that arises out of the ADF or veterans, and I really want to support this motion.

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