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

I want to acknowledge the previous speakers and, like them, thank our first responders, as I do, often, in my electorate and across the country. But, more than that, I am acting to support them in the areas where they need support, and the work at Fortem is part of that. Part of it also is a commitment of $3.6 million for supported accommodation for veterans and first responders in my electorate when they need it because of the difficult work that they do and the trauma that they see, often on a daily basis. When they need that support we will be there to support them and give them a place where they can rest up and get connected to the services they need.

I've been working with Fortem for some time and there is a Fortem staff person in Darwin. What the funding from the federal government will do is enable a psychologist to be employed to work in Darwin in my electorate, supporting people in the Northern Territory with the mental health support that they need because of their important work. They're the best of our community, whether they be full-time salaried people or volunteers. We owe them a great deal. As well as those who serve on the front line in health and defence, just in my family there is a firey, and one of my nephews is an ambulance officer. They're about serving and protecting the community. A lot of my mates who were in the military have gone on to serve with the police force. They do so bravely.

Whether it be facing crime, helping Australians that have been pulled into a rip-tide or facing Australians who have been injured, they are doing horrific things that we don't want the rest of the community to have to do. That's why we have first responders. Just imagine picking up a baby that has passed away, out of a car crash. Imagine the trauma of that. But someone has to do it, and our first responders are the ones that do it. And that's why we're backing them. That's why, as the Prime Minister announced on Remembrance Day, we're going to make sure that Fortem has the funds to have services like the one I've described for Darwin: a Fortem psychologist to provide that support to our first responders. It's important.

When I talk to veterans about first responders, they say they've got all the respect in the world for them because they are on the job facing those situations every day—danger, every day. There's a great deal of respect between the two, and that's why the Scott Palmer Services Centre, named after commando Scotty Palmer, who was killed in Afghanistan in a tragic helicopter accident, will honour him by having a facility that not only helps veterans but helps first responders as well.

Now, the member for McPherson is making a partisan point here, and I don't usually seek to draw the services into partisan debate, but what her motion does allow us to do is to speak about our first responders and to honour them. Rather than being partisan, I'll be bipartisan and say that I was happy and impressed when Prime Minister Morrison announced last year that the government would commit $10 million in funding for Fortem in its April budget. Of course, the only problem was that that announced funding never actually came into existence. The funding was announced—and we know they were great at that—but it was never appropriated in the former government's budget. Former Prime Minister Morrison announced the funding but didn't appropriate it in the budget.

First responders out there and their families, to whom we owe so much, will see that funding for Fortem appropriated in the budget in full so that we can provide our first responders the services that they and their families need for providing the services that they do. We owe our first responders, and their families, a great deal. We'll provide that support with this funding.

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