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

It was fantastic on the weekend to meet some of the newest Australian Defence Force families that have been posted into the Territory at the Defence Members Families Support's, DMFS, Welcome to the Top End event. Our ADF personnel, veterans, ex-service organisations and many other community and sporting organisations came together in the Darwin Convention Centre to show what we have to offer in the Top End for our new families. It was great to speak with many of the serving members and their partners, wives, husbands, daughters and sons to hear how the move to the Top End was going. It was great to see whether the spouses had found work and whether the kids had settled into schools okay and to make sure that they understood how valuable they are to us as a community and how welcome they are in the Top End.

As we know, partners and families are the backbone of our ADF personnel. Our ADF members can't do the difficult job that they do for us as a nation without the support of their families, and that's why our government, the Albanese government, has released the Defence and Veteran Family Wellbeing Strategy from this year until 2030, known as the family strategy. It's identifying better ways to support our Defence personnel and veterans, and that's why this event in Darwin on the weekend was so important. Well done to all involved.