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

Dr Bernadette Boss has been announced as the interim National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention. When the government announced they were going to go ahead with this interim commissioner model, I said to them that it wasn't going to work if it was someone who was a current or former serving member of the ADF. I asked the Minister for Defence if it was going to be, and she said no. She said to me unequivocally: 'No, it won't be.' I asked the Minister for Finance, and he said no, unequivocally. Ask them if they deny it. Let them go on the record and say that didn't happen.

The decision of who to put in as interim commissioner was one for cabinet. The Minister for Defence sits at the cabinet table. The Minister for Finance sits at the cabinet table. They told me the national commissioner wouldn't be ex-ADF, but guess what? Yep, she is. One of two things happened: either they lied then or they were telling the truth and just didn't have the numbers around cabinet. If they lost the vote around the cabinet table, it's because someone else in the room, when the decision was being made, fought against someone independent being put into that role and pushed instead for someone who's got that khaki tinge to them. I don't know which one it is, but, if you're saying one thing will happen and the exact opposite thing happens, it's either because you were overconfident and you lost or because you lied. There isn't another option, so which one is it? Let's say someone at the cabinet table didn't want someone independent in charge. Ask yourself: Why is that? What do they have to lose from someone asking questions without fear or favour? I'll tell you what I think. I think this government doesn't want an independent investigation because it has a sneaking suspicion of what they'll find.

I didn't ask the question for no reason. There's no way the commissioner can do their job if they don't have the confidence of the community they're supposed to be assisting—that would be the service organisations—which they don't. So now you've blown the trust thing. Let me put it to you this way: it would be like putting John Setka in charge of the trade union royal commission or Ken Henry in charge of the banking royal commission. You don't put someone in to investigate an institution if they're tied at the hip to that institution. It makes no sense—unless, of course, you're going for a cover-up. You don't do it unless you don't want them being independent.

Why wouldn't you want someone independent investigating? Independent investigations don't give a damn about who they offend, who they drag out to front up to the tough questions. They don't care who is upset by a finding, because that is their job—to find and tell the truth, not to cover up. Their obligation is only to find out what's going on and to be honest about it—and for people to trust that what they're telling them is the truth. I'm not saying Dr Boss is a bad person. I'm just saying that she spent 20 years as part of an institution and she's now being asked to do the impossible, to separate herself from it. Come on! These veteran suicides, some of them have been caused by the brass in the Armed Forces and their decisions. She's tied at the hip to these people. You don't become de-institutionalised after coming out of the Army after 20 years. It's just rubbish; it doesn't work that way. You can't spend that much time rising through the ranks of an institution without becoming attached to it. And if you're loyal to the institution you're not loyal to the people who are supposed to be coming forward with claims against it, nor do you have the trust that you can do that. If you're even perceived as being loyal to the institution, who's going to come forward? And if people don't come forward it's not because they don't have problems, it's because they don't trust that their concerns will be given a fair hearing—and they won't.

Let's not forget that we have a Minister for Veterans' Affairs who thinks a royal commission would be a waste of money; he supports a national commissioner. The Department of Veterans' Affairs was flatly opposed to a royal commission; it supports a national commissioner. The RSL has criticised the idea of a royal commission as being costly and unwarranted; it supports a national commissioner. You have to ask yourself: if there's nothing different between a royal commission and a national commissioner, why do DVA, the RSL and its president and the minister all like the national commissioner but not the royal commission? Why is that? If there's no difference between the two, why do they only like one of them? It's because they aren't the same at all, and everybody knows that. Royal commissions are completely independent. Nobody tells a royal commission what to investigate. The national commissioner has their terms of reference written by the institutions they're supposed to be holding to account. That's not independent! And that's not fair to those veterans who are taking their lives out there. It's just not fair at all.

Royal commissions get every resource they need to do their job. The national commissioner has one-quarter of the budget of the trade union royal commission—one-quarter! That's what a veteran is worth. If you ask the national commissioner to do the same job as a royal commission but cut three quarters of their budget before they start then you've already set them up for failure: it's finished—it's over, it's gone. So having a national commissioner, or an interim commissioner, is a waste of our time. You've tied their laces together before the race kicks off. You make a joke out of them and that's exactly what you over there are doing. Royal commissions are flexible, responsive and dynamic. They're able to adapt their focus and their priorities around what is happening in real time. It's not once you're dead; it's too late then! You can't just say: 'Hey! You up there! Can you come down for a few minutes—beam down here, Scotty!' It doesn't work like that.

You won't find any mentions of COVID-19 in the aged-care royal commission's terms of reference, but that doesn't stop it from looking into its impacts. That's because royal commissions interpret their own terms of reference without any interference from the government of the day. The national commissioner is a prisoner to their terms of reference. They can't stray outside what they're told to look into and, if they do, they're liable to be pulled into line by the government that controls them. That's the other thing: the national commissioner can be fired or replaced for any reason at any time. Their terms of reference can be changed with the stroke of a pen. If a government doesn't like what the commissioner is looking into it can change the rules halfway through the investigation. It can make it unlawful for the commissioner to keep looking where they're looking. If they're getting too independent then the commissioner can be fired. If they're getting too powerful, the commissioner's budget can be slashed. If they're getting too much done, they can be axed altogether. The government says they're permanent, but that's only until it changes its mind.

Royal commissions deliver a single set of recommendations to the government. The national commissioner just says: 'G'day, I'll check in today—a good day for it. No worries there, mate,' and delivers a report to parliament that will get filed away in a drawer, and not even journalists will bother to open it. It is not out in the open. That's the other thing: royal commissions get public attention and they use that public attention to demand a public response—a response that demands accountability. They get governments to do something. The national commissioner doesn't have an end date, so never delivers a final list of recommendations. I'm sure that suits you guys over there. I'm sure it's just fabulous! The commissioner just delivers the same recommendations year in and year out, and they never get the public attention that forces the government to respond. So they get ignored and they become part of the furniture.

Do you want to know why DVA, the minister responsible for DVA, and all those ex-services organisations that rely on DVA funding are opposed to a royal commission? Because a royal commission would hold DVA to account and would also hold defence to account; it would hold the ministers to account and it would hold the ex-service organisations that aren't doing the right thing to account. It would hold them to account without fear and without favour, with a commitment to nothing other than preventing suicides by current and former defence members. The organisations that don't want to be put under the microscope are opposed to being put under the microscope. That's not a shock. The organisations that are trying to avoid scrutiny all support the national commission. That is a shock, because isn't it exactly the same as a royal commission? If you want to know if there's any difference between a national commission and a royal commission, ask yourself if there's any difference between who supports one or the other. The families of veterans who have taken their own lives support a royal commission. The institutions who are being blamed for those suicides support a national commissioner. Well, what do you know!

I don't think Dr Bernadette Boss is a bad person, although I haven't seen her in action yet. I think she has been put in a bad position, and you've done that to her. And now I'm going to be chasing her, so good luck with that. She's being asked to fix a problem with none of the tools she needs to fix it. She's expected to succeed while she's being set up for failure. Her job is not really to fix anything. As far as the government is concerned, as long as she's not a royal commission then she's done all she needs to do. There's nothing else left for her to do but to show up, nod her head and expect everybody to agree with her on why veterans' deaths continue to rise, and that's exactly what's going to happen. For God's sake, do the smart thing and call for a royal commission!