Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) recognises that the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide Final Report demonstrates that successive governments have failed to support service personnel and their families; and

(b) calls on the Government to urgently publish a comprehensive timeline outlining the implementation of all recommendations of the final report, ensuring that reforms for service personnel and their families are carried out in a timely and effective manner.

I don't think anyone in Australia would disagree with the first part of my motion today. Governments have been failing our veterans for decades. Not only have they failed our veterans; they have failed their families. Over the last 40 years, nearly 60 reports and 750 recommendations have been largely ignored, and Defence was still refusing to hand over documents to the royal commission whilst it was ongoing.

The work of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide must be a game changer. Defence and the government cannot be allowed to cherrypick the recommendations that work for them. All the recommendations need to be carefully examined and implemented as soon as possible. If Minister Keogh and Minister Marles are serious about making real change for our veterans, then they need urgently to get on with publishing a timeline for the recommendations. Here's a tip—because you could start with this tomorrow: I would start with the 18 recommendations that go straight to the conduct and operation of the military justice system, the Inspector-General of Australian Defence Force, the IGADF. Minister Marles knows all about the IGADF; he's been sitting on a report that was delivered to him six months ago—three months to write a report and six months to sit on it.

The military justice system is there to make sure that veterans placed under investigation are treated fairly. In other words, it's there to make sure veterans get justice. But the military justice system has failed to deliver justice for veterans since it started over 20 years ago. Rather than delivering justice and looking after our serving men and women, the chain of command has misused and abused the legal processes to target veterans, and the IGADF signed off on those abuses, often while still reviewing cases. It was only after lawyers, often acting pro bono, managed to have the IGADF reviews reviewed that the cases were found to be an abuse of process and an attack on our veterans. Recommendation 30 from the royal commission's final report goes straight to the heart of this, naming their weaponisation of the military justice system and noting that serving personnel were incorrectly charged and that, when a defending officer made representations to get the charges dropped, they themselves were persecuted, destroying their careers.

Here are just a couple of recent examples. A soldier—let's call him Tom—had completed multiple combat tours in the Middle East. Tom put in a complaint about his chain of command. An inquiry officer was appointed, but, instead of holding senior officers to account, the inquiry officer exonerated the chain of command, made adverse findings against Tom and referred his case to the IGADF for review. In other words, they referred it to their mates—because that's how it works—for a review. Would you believe—yes, sadly, I do—that the IGADF backed in the inquiry officer's findings and upheld the adverse findings against Tom? After years of fighting this, Tom retained the services of Dr Kolomeitz and went back to the IGADF and demanded an independent review of the original review. The IGADF ignored Dr Kolomeitz's repeated calls for another look at Tom's case, so Dr Kolomeitz was forced to call them out in the media to get their attention. Finally, the IGADF looked more closely at Tom's case and came back and said, 'Yes, the original findings were terribly wrong.' Tom received a pathetically small amount of money, nothing that would fix the torment and metal health impacts he has had to endure.

Let me give you another example. Another multiple-tour combat veteran—let's call him Fred—left the Army, went to the Army Reserve and became a tactical police officer. Fred was subjected to an ongoing weaponised administration process by his chain of command. When Fred went to the IGADF, they did nothing, but when the chain of command found out they took more adverse actions against Fred. The adverse actions they can take include everything from a note on your personnel file to rank determination and losses in pay. Fred also went and found Dr Kolomeitz, who had each action overturned, but then—wait for it—the chain of command took away Fred's rank. It just keeps getting better! Fred only found out after looking up his personnel file on the Army's computer system. Dr Kolomeitz and Fred went back to the Army again and questioned this decision. Army was made to give him back his rank. They handed Fred his rank slide with one hand and a moment later handed him his termination of service. This is how we deal with whistleblowers in the military: we brick them, do whatever we can, give them one thing and then take the other until we've worn them down to nothing. That's what the military justice abuse system, as I like to call it, does to our military members, especially those of lower rank.

Dr Kolomeitz took this up. He took it as far as the Army headquarters, but instead of looking at the chain of command—once again, never look at the chain of command, God forbid!—and their clearly inappropriate behaviour in Fred's case, they appointed an inquiry officer to look at what had happened but excluded putting the conduct of any individual in the frame. The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force and the military justice system know all about this case and still have done nothing. Three years at a royal commission—they should have spent more time working on this case rather than trying to intimidate me at the royal commission and bringing in the heavy hitters, because that is what they are about. They are disgusting, absolutely disgusting.

Dr Kolomeitz, like other lawyers out there, has dealt with soldiers who were subjected to acts of indecency. When they reported this, investigations were either not forthcoming or bungled. We're not just talking about one or two here; there are hundreds of them. Many others are aware of serving members who have committed sexual assault, including rape, who are still serving. I was aware when I went through the 33 folders of defence abuse, which were just startlingly disgraceful, and saw the names in there that I had known of those people when I was serving and before I got out. Do you know what I find more distressing than anything? It's that simply nothing came out of all of that—Dr Gary Rumble 's report or anything like that. I found out that those senior command officers never asked to see those 33 folders of defence abuse. They didn't want to see them because they didn't want to fix it, and I think that says it all. Have any of them lost pay, rank, anything else or their careers? No, absolutely not.

Gary Rumble's review in 2006 had a list of recommendations that would have fixed any issues, but, like everything else, the report was ignored. Recommendation 44 was also directed at the IGADF. It suggests the military justice system should develop a workforce plan that includes a review of necessary skills, expertise and qualifications. Wow! Imagine making these decisions on veterans' lives and you don't have qualifications. What a shameful act! It absolutely blows me away. How can a professional organisation not already have a plan to make sure that people who are investigating are properly qualified? You wonder why you have problems with the military justice system and its abuse.

The next recommendation, No. 45, should be at the top of Minister Marles' to-do list. It says that the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force should improve the transparency and accountability of their office—imagine that our own legal system in Defence can't be transparent and accountable; it's frightening that's where we've got to—by making clear its standard operating procedures and setting key performance indicators related to the timeliness of assessments. In other words, they need to give veterans some idea of how long a review or inquiry will take, because that will determine whether or not it will tip a veteran over the edge, and not just leave them in limbo, in some cases for months and years, on their decision-making. Again, you would think this would be an obvious thing to fix, especially for an organisation that is supposed to mete out justice. But I don't think that is the IGADF's main role. I think its main purpose is to cover up for senior command. Well, no more; this has to stop. The fact that the royal commissioners targeted 18 of their recommendations at the military justice system should be enough of a wake-up call. I'd say the military justice system is cooked. It is cooked; it is finished. It's over.

On Monday, when the final report was tabled, Defence Minister Marles said:

We have been working to deliver real change each and every day.

He also said:

We will now work through the recommendations in a timely and methodical matter.

That's government spin, you veterans, for saying that they'll get around to it. Just so you know, that's the normal spin up here. That's how it works. You would think that they would have had some sort of time line. They were given an interim report. They had people sitting in during the royal commission. They would have been picking up on this. You have had to ask: what have we been paying these people for, whether they are from DVA or Defence, to sit in at every one of these public royal commission meetings, and they haven't got a timeline? I find that quite disgraceful, to be honest. It's not that difficult. You've got 122 recommendations. All that stuff came out during the royal commission. So, as much as I'd like to give you veterans some hope before the weekend, I'm just not going to do that, because I can't.

It's not good enough. The government, Minister Marles and Minister Keogh, like I said, have been quite aware of this report coming. It has come to the point where, though I should not have to, I am going to put forward a motion to push them along. They should have been ready with some sort of timeline. Instead of doing that, Minister Marles released his response to the Brereton inquiry, stripping some senior command of the citations but not touching the generals. Once again, the top brass gets off the hook. If Minister Marles and Minister Keogh really meant all those nice things they said in the meeting with the veteran community on Monday, then they will get on with publishing that timeline and reassuring the veteran community that they are serious about honouring their service and caring for our veterans.

I do notice, so you veterans know about the spin stuff, that the government has tried to change my motion, just so we're all very aware of that. I had called on the government to:

… urgently publish a comprehensive timeline outlining the implementation of all recommendations of the final report, ensuring that reforms for service personnel and their families are carried out in a timely and effective manner.

To get the government of Australia to vote for this motion, they have changed that and watered it down. This is what they put. They need these words so they look pretty. The amended motion:

… calls on the Government to urgently work towards publicly releasing its response to all recommendations of the Final Report, to ensure that the recommended reforms aimed at supporting service personnel and their families can be implemented in a timely and effective manner.

So I would just say to you, veterans: take a deep breath. I can assure you that, if you thought the fight was on during the royal commission, the fight begins today. The fight begins today for justice for you. And it's going to be a really rocky road.

I don't think it has been helpful that with all the emotional stuff of putting that royal commission out on Monday—all that emotional stuff that they're still trying to deal with a couple of days later—you come out and the best thing you can do is say, 'Hey, we've got nine people we're going to take citations off when it comes to the alleged war crimes.' Jesus, that was a nice slap in the face! Thanks for coming! And the veterans are going: 'How come? What's happened to the generals?' There's no responsibility for them either. This is not helpful.

I have to ask why you would have kept this thing for four years to look at it, and you released it. Which idiot decided to release that today? Do you know how harmful that has been today? You couldn't wait till the next sitting? Seriously, you just don't get it. This is what bothers me more than anything. You would never have pulled an act like that today. That is shameful. If I lose one veteran's life over the weekend because of this, I expect the resignation of your defence minister. What a stupid thing to do today. How hurtful!

Don't worry, the generals and the top end have done you over. They've been doing you over for years. We're going to do you and throw you diggers under the bus with the alleged war crimes as well and hold none of them big boys accountable. Straight across their face—here we go! She's on—honestly! She starts Monday. It all starts Monday. You'll realise on Monday why. It's coming at you, and I'm coming at you. The gloves are off. It's going to be a fight from hell, but it is a fight I'm not moving from. I won't move today, and I won't move tomorrow. For you veterans out there, some of us in this chamber have your back. Don't you forget that. Hold tight, because we have you.