Interview, 2CC 1206 AM with Leon Delaney

E&OE transcript
Radio interview
2CC 1206 AM

LEON DELANEY: Earlier this afternoon the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel, Matt Keogh, delivered the Government’s response to the Interim Report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. He admitted successive Governments have failed veterans and their families when addressing heightened suicide rates. The Minister joins me now. Thanks for being part of the program today. It was an important speech to give today, wasn’t it?

MATT KEOGH: It certainly was, because it’s an acknowledgment of the failings of Governments past and from those departments, and also acknowledging the great work that the Royal Commission has been doing and coming forward quickly as a Government to set forth how we’re responding to each of the recommendations that’s come from the Royal Commission and its Interim Report.

LEON DELANEY: Now, as I understand it, most of the recommendations, the Government is taking on board. But there are a couple of exceptions. Now, why is that?

MATT KEOGH: So, there’s a few recommendations that go to some of the administration of the Royal Commission as it’s ongoing, and we agree with the principles behind the recommendation the Royal Commission has made about making sure that it gets access to all of the information that it needs but also protecting parliamentary privilege. Freedom of speech is very important as well. And there’s a few things that we think that we can actually work through with the Royal Commission more quickly around making sure that people are protected when they come forward to give evidence to the Royal Commission.So, we’ve agreed in principle with one. We’ve noted two others. We’ve not come out and disagreed with any of the recommendations, but that’s on top of the nine recommendations that we’ve agreed to and one that we’ve actually already implemented.

LEON DELANEY: Well, that one that you’ve already implemented is number five, and that relates to the average staffing level cap which has been a contentious policy right across the public service. Now, the Department of Veterans Affairs will have no more cap; that sets it apart from the rest of the public service I suppose. But that’s important because that department’s really struggled under the weight of the demand for its services, hasn’t it?

MATT KEOGH: It absolutely has. It’s really faced some resource constraints and staffing constraints, and it’s been very reliant on the use of labour hire, so removing the staffing level cap, but also engaging 500 additional staff, which we are doing, which responds to recommendation two, to eliminate the claims backlog, means that we’re able to get on with that job because the backlog that had developed over a number of years has been a significant problem. We recognised that before the election. That’s why we made that commitment to employ 500 additional staff in the election for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs so that we can now get on with the job of trying to plough through that backlog so that we can be processing claims as quickly as possible.

LEON DELANEY: Yeah, there’s obviously some challenges that have been fairly readily identified, but actually solving those challenges is a bit more tricky.

MATT KEOGH: Look, absolutely, and especially when we look at recommendation one, which is about simplifying and harmonising the legislation. We’ve agreed to do that. We’ve said that we’ll set forth a pathway on how we want to do that soon. But there’s three pieces of legislation. They’re highly complex. It does make it hard, the claims processing within the Department. Just one of those pieces of legislation has 170 pages of definitions, so there’s a lot of work to do. We’ve got to work with the veteran community, with veterans advocates, with those that are involved in this system to make sure that we can find a way forward that people are happy with, and it is going to be complex and there’ll consultation that’s required as part of that.

LEON DELANEY: The recommendations nine through to 13 relates to the communications engaged in by the Government with families of deceased service personnel. Now, those communications have been a real sticking point, haven’t they?

MATT KEOGH: They really have and there’s been quite a bit of evidence to the Royal Commission about how families of those who have taken their own life as Defence personnel or Veterans have not been able to get access to information about their loved one that has been held by Defence or Veterans’ Affairs, and we’ve acknowledged that. The agencies have acknowledged it. We need to up our game here and those recommendations we’ve agreed to, to improve that access to make sure that there’s a clear pathway for administrative access to remove some of the hurdles that have had to be jumped over by family members, but also to provide clear education information to families about how those processes can work, why some information from Defence will have to be redacted, but also to have regular prompts of defence service personnel to update their information as well so that who the right next of kin are, who the family members are, is clear within Defence so that we know who should have the appropriate access to that information as well.

LEON DELANEY: In relation to communication, that also extends to people that were serving members of the ADF but didn’t necessarily know about what support they might be entitled to. You highlighted that in your speech today, that people were unaware of the support that they had available and were entitled to, they just didn’t know it existed.

MATT KEOGH: Yeah, and this is one of the real tragedies that we’re finding is that people are not aware of the support that is available through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, that there has been a period of time where that information wasn’t being provided to people after they left service within our Defence Force. They’re certainly getting that information now, but we do need to make sure for those who are not aware that might have had service previously that we make them aware, that they become aware of the sort of support and information and services that they can get through the Department of Veterans’ Affairs that they’re entitled to get.

LEON DELANEY: You also made a point of calling for anybody who has further material to present to the Royal Commission to come forward and do so because submissions are still open and will be for another couple of weeks.

MATT KEOGH: They’re actually open for over a year.

LEON DELANEY: Sorry. I read the wrong year there. That was my mistake. So, yes, they’re open for another year. There we go.

MATT KEOGH: Yeah, so through to October next year, and the Royal Commission itself finishes June of 2024. But, obviously, for the Royal Commission to do its good work, it needs to have as much input as possible from serving personnel, veterans, their families, about their experiences, about where things have gone wrong and also their views about how things could be done better. And, so, I do encourage people to come forward and provide that evidence to the Commission, whether that’s as public evidence or whether that’s through a private hearing, because it is important we get as many people to come forward and share their experience, but also to provide their input about how we can improve these systems so that we don’t have this continuing tragedy of the rate of suicide that we see in our defence and veterans community.

LEON DELANEY: Indeed, it is. Thanks very much for your time today.

MATT KEOGH: Thanks, Leon.

END

Authorised by The Hon Matt Keogh MP

Open Arms – Veterans & Families Counselling provides 24/7 free confidential crisis support for current and ex-serving ADF personnel and their families on 1800 011 046 or the Open Arms website. Safe Zone Support provides anonymous counselling on 1800 142 072. Defence All-Hours Support Line provides support for ADF personnel on 1800 628 036 or the Defence Health Portal. Defence Member and Family Helpline provides support for Defence families on 1800 624 608