Press Conference: Darwin Veterans' and Families Hub, 29th May 2023

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DARWIN, NT
PRESS CONFERENCE
MONDAY 29 MAY 2023

LUKE GOSLING, MEMBER FOR SOLOMON: G’day everyone. Thanks for coming down here to Stuart Park for the official opening of the Mates4Mates, veterans and Family Wellbeing Hub. This is a great piece of infrastructure that's gonna help veterans and their families for generations into the future. We understand, the Albanese Labor Government understands that we needed to do a couple of things, implement the recommendations, the interim recommendations from the Royal Commission and make sure that there's wellbeing hubs in the areas of high concentration of veterans to support them and their families. Now, Matt Keogh, who's the Minister for Defence Personnel and Veterans, a frequent visitor to the NT and to Darwin, has come up to officially open the hub this morning. It's always great to have him in town. We've also got the NT Chief Minister and the NT Veterans Minister Paul Kirby. Thanks for coming down.

MINISTER MATT KEOGH, MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS: Well, thanks very much Luke, and it's great to be here with such a great advocate for Defence Personnel and Veterans. The local Member for Solomon Luke Gosling, as well as the Chief Minister and the State Veterans’ Minister here at the new Mates4Mates, Veterans’ and Families’ Wellbeing Centre, which is part of the Australian Government's Veterans’ and Families’ Hub Network across Australia. The Australian Government has made a $5 million investment through Mates4Mates in the establishment of this Veterans’ and Families’ Wellbeing Centre. And this is going to be a Hub that provides access to a range of support services right here, as well as referrals to other services that are available to support our veterans and families across Darwin and across the NT. And we've got seven and half thousand serving personnel and veterans right here across the Darwin region, as well as more than 10,000 across the Northern Territory, making sure that we've got excellent service provision, both in terms of health, physically, mentally providing those rehab services, providing connections to advocacy, legal services, but also in a place like this, just being able to have somewhere where people can come together, share a brew, make connections with one another is vitally important.

And that's what these hubs around the country and especially here in Darwin provide. And so it's an absolute pleasure and honour to be part of officially opening this Veterans’ and Families’ Wellbeing Centre, run by Mates4Mates to support all of our veterans and families, as well as serving defence personnel across the top end. I'm going to hand over to the Chief Minister to say a few words. I think we're going to hear then from Emma, the Managing Director from Mates4Mates

NATASHA FYLES, CHIEF MINISTER: We thank the Commonwealth Government for their investment working with Mates4Mates to deliver this vital service into the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory has a strong defence presence and we also see veterans decide to stay here for their families. So to provide that ongoing, both emotional and wellbeing support as well as physical is really important. The Northern Territory Government has also recently launched our Defence Veterans Strategy and we'll continue to work with veterans around what we can do as a Territory Government to provide ongoing support into the future to help ensure that our veterans are a part of our community and that we provide them and their families with as many opportunities as possible. Thank you.

EMMA WHITEHEAD: Good morning. My name's Emma Whitehead and I'm the General Manager of Mates4Mates and it's fabulous to be here this morning opening the Mates4Mates, Veterans’ and Family Wellbeing Centre here in Stuart Park. I'd like to say thank you to the Australian Government Department of Veterans Affairs for the 5 million dollar grant that has enabled us to build and open this building here today. Mates4Mates has been delivering services to veterans and family members in Palmerston for about two years. And in that time, we've built up a sense of community in this, in this town, and we are absolutely delighted to be expanding those services here to Stuart Park. This centre offers a range of services, which include a physical rehab, mental health and wellbeing and social connection services, but also in partnering with other agencies, we have medical services, legal services and advocacy services for our clients. So it's great to be here today and it's wonderful to be opening this new centre. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: Can I ask Matt how close you are to clearing the sort of backlog of claims?

MINISTER KEOGH: So certainly upon coming into Government, we had a huge backlog of claims within the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. We, at that time, we saw the claims were running about 42,000 in the backlog, and that continued to climb through to September where it got up to about 45,000 claims in the backlog. We made a commitment and have been investing in additional staff within the Department, and we're now got nearly around 300 additional staff in the Department that we committed to. Crucially, what we're seeing now is that the number of claims in the backlog is now down to 36,000, that's a 20 per cent drop from the peak in September and heading in the right direction. And we're continuing to engage more staff in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs so that we can get through that backlog as soon as possible.

JOURNALIST: What will your next priority be in terms of the Royal Commission and what you expect to come out of the final report?

MINISTER KEOGH: So certainly we have been working through the 13 recommendations of the Interim Report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. And we've taken action in respect of all of those, including information access for loved ones, including the issues around protecting people coming to give evidence to the Royal Commission itself, resourcing the Department with those 500 additional staff, making sure the IT systems and internal systems help clear that backlog. And we've been working on the reform of the legislation that underpins our veterans’ entitlement system. We've spent the first part of this year consulting with the veterans’ community with experts as well around how we can make a better system to support our veterans. The formal submissions for that first round closed only this month. And we are working through now a process to bring forward draft legislation later this year working on all of those things. And we very much look forward to seeing the final report from the Royal Commission in the middle of next year to see what those recommendations are so we can make sure that we are delivering a better future for defence personnel, veterans and families.

JOURNALIST: The organisations running these centres are very happy with the Federal Government funding. But are you sure that a lot of these organisations which are quite volunteer dependent, will have enough operational funding to keep running what's needed in these centres?

MINISTER KEOGH: So certainly part of the setup for these veterans and families hubs across the country provides funding predominantly for the capital for the building, but also some of the initial operating costs involved. Business cases need to be developed by all of the operators before they come into receiving their grants. And that includes how are they going to be able to sustain a funding model to continue to provide services on an ongoing basis. And that's a critical part of the assessment process that we undergo in, in issuing their grants.

JOURNALIST: A lot of the veterans in remote and regional areas like the NT feel that while they might be able to get connected up with like psychological support centre that often you're still waiting a long time to get into any of the psych services in places like this. Is the Federal Government doing anything about that?

MINISTER KEOGH: So certainly we are seeing across the country that we are experiencing a shortage of medical practitioners in certain areas and, physical health as well. And, you know, psychological support services, psychiatrists and others are where we are seeing, seeing some of those shortages not just in places like the Northern Territory, but actually across outer metropolitan regions across the country. We are absolutely working to try and make sure that we can bring on more medical professionals across the country to make sure people get access to the services they need, but also making sure that we are financially supporting those practitioners to make sure that they continue to provide good service to support our veterans. So the tripling of the veteran access payments to GPs, for example, with the Budget just gone, is a great example of how we are supporting the medical profession to support our veterans.

JOURNALIST: Just an example of what some of the claims are. What, what sort of services are being sort of required or from those, from those claims?

MINISTER KEOGH: So there's two key elements I guess to the claims that we see in the claims backlog with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. The first is just establishing the linkage of a particular injury or condition to service so that a veteran can then access all of the health services and supports that are available to support that injury, to make sure that they get everything they need when it comes to their health and wellbeing. And then the second element of that is compensation to those veterans with the injury caused and the impact on life, on their life and lifestyle ongoing.

JOURNALIST: The, of the things that was formed in the interim report of the Royal Commission that is as well as the timeframe for the backlog. There was a negative attitude that a lot of veterans felt with people in the Department who were dealing with their claims. What's Government done to change the culture of staff? Were temporary employees brought in to deal with the backlog?

MINISTER KEOGH: Certainly one of the issues that we confronted in the Department of Veterans Affairs when we came into Government was an extraordinary high proportion of labour hire employees into Department. And whilst good people, they didn't have any job security. And it meant as we churned through the workforce, we had to continually re-train that workforce as well. And so it wasn't a great place to be able to provide service from in the, that environment. We've done significant work now to bring on more people as public servants in the Department to become less reliant on labour hire to make sure we can provide better service. So we are not seeing that churn of staff, which is unhelpful for veterans, but also is inefficient in the work of the Department, which means that that backlog can continue to be there. So we've done that work now, those additional staff we're bringing on are public servants. They've got greater job security, they're able to provide better service to veterans, and we're able to retain the broad trained staff as well.

JOURNALIST: What's the time frame for the rest of the Hubs around the country please?

MINISTER KEOGH: So we're going through the assessment process on business cases on those Hubs at the moment, and we look forward to making some announcements on those shortly. And we hope that we'll be able to be announcing the full grants and who will be running those Hubs by the end of this year.

JOURNALIST: And what is the strategy for the Northern Territory? There was some criticism from a Veterans’ Group that the current, the recent NT Budget didn't provide much for them?

NATASHA FYLES: So we recently launched our veteran strategy, which identified the ways in which the Northern Territory Government worked to support serving Defence personnel, their families, and also their veterans. We've put in place, for example 20 physicians within the Public Service for veterans. So we look at more practical measures going forward that will help create those opportunities. And myself, along with the Minister here in the Territory, Paul Kirby, continue to work with veterans. There's initiatives that have worked in other jurisdictions that we could translate across to the Territory, but we're also open to unique ideas. We certainly know that people, when they come through the Territory on their Defence rotations fall in love and we wanna make it as easy as possible for them to stay in the territory.

JOURNALIST: What's the Government doing to make sure that veterans can actually get access to things like psychological services and things that they need, even if they get referred from a centre like this?

NATASHA FYLES: So we work in with the Commonwealth Government, but think an example is working with the Darwin Private Hospital. They recently, in the last couple of years opened new spaces there to provide mental health services. So it's around as a Government, what can we do to enable those services to set up a base here in the Territory, ensuring veterans is one part of that, but other Territorians accessing those services. So I think that collaboration is a really important piece.

JOURNALIST: Does the Government have a handle on what the suicide problem is like in the Territory, or are we still really suffering from a lack of data here?

NATASHA FYLES: We know that here in the Northern Territory, we have a high rate of suicide compared to other jurisdictions, and we've been working significantly, not only at the acute end, so there's facilities, Royal Darwin Hospital, a new way in which patients can be brought into the acute hospital to better care for them. We've got the non-responder model, which has proven to be extremely successful, where paramedics, police and a mental health nurse will visit an individual in their home and try and avoid an acute presentation. And then we're also focused around those wellbeing services to help people maintain their mental health and to ensure that they have those supports at a community based level.

JOURNALIST: Is the Government considering stronger penalties for protests (inaudible)?

NATASHA FYLES: I haven't had advice such as that.

JOURNALIST: And what's your response, to the Territory being the last jurisdiction in Australia to potentially change that?

NATASHA FYLES: So when I was Attorney General, we did the work around Let Her Speak, and we worked closely with advocates in this space. And we did change the law. We did consider it at that point. We need to be careful that we don't, in identifying an alleged perpetrator that we identify the victim, but we will continue to ensure this type of legislation is fast moving. We have seen other jurisdictions change their Legislation and we are looking at those changes and what can potentially be done here in the Territory.

JOURNALIST: The Attorney General has been working on a few reforms to the sexual offence laws, tabled in the last sittings why hasn't this been included in that?

NATASHA FYLES: As I said, it was something that was contemplated when we did the let her speak reforms. We're working with, and we'll consult with stakeholders because it is important for the point that I just made. We don't want to inadvertently identify victims by changing legislation allowing the identification of alleged perpetrators. So it's complex and we just need to make sure that we get it right, particularly for the Northern Territories context at very small communities. We don't want to do something that seems like a good idea, but actually impacts on victims any more than needed.

JOURNALIST: So a Government spokesperson told us that it wasn't being considered at the moment. So is that the case and what work is actually happening?

NATASHA FYLES: So as I just said, we are always looking at law reform. It's important that we do discuss these topics for stakeholders. We've got unique circumstances here in the Territory. We need to make sure they're taken into consideration.

JOURNALIST: Thank you. Just introduce yourself, yourself as well. Thanks.

EMMA WHITEHEAD: I'm Emma Whitehead, General Manager at Mates4Mates.

JOURNALIST: So two years after starting up to get to this point. Seems like a really fast process, does it show the need that's here in the Northern Territory to provide support?

EMMA WHITEHEAD: Yeah. The services that we put on in the Northern Territory have been well subscribed. We're very pleased to see that people are using the services and accessing the supports that they need.

JOURNALIST: How important is it to have it all co-located in the one area?

EMMA WHITEHEAD: Having services co-located in a building with partner organisations that also serve veterans and family members is really important because it allows people to access a range of services more easily. It gives better access to people and makes service navigation a little bit easier for them.

JOURNALIST: How do you get your connections in the community? Because you've brought your organisation from Queensland to here, how you make sure that people who are in the local community know you're here and that they can come and get support here?

EMMA WHITEHEAD: We've worked very hard in the Northern Territory to build relationships with lots of the organisations that are supported. We've worked very hard in the Northern Territory to form relationships with organisations that support veterans and family members and with organisations that serve the community more generally so that we can offer a range of services to people who need them. And that includes medical services, legal services, and the range of services that Mates4Mates offers, including physical rehabilitation, mental health and wellbeing and social connection activities.

JOURNALIST: What much does it cost to run all those services and how long is your funding for that?

EMMA WHITEHEAD: Mates4Mates is very fortunate to receive a donation from RSL Queensland, which has allowed us to make a commitment to services in the Northern Territory for the longer term.

JOURNALIST: And how much does it cost to run a centre like this for a year?

EMMA WHITEHEAD: Running a centre like this obviously commits us to a, a number of staff in the Northern Territory who offer exercise, rehabilitation psychological services and social connection services.

JOURNALIST: Have you found that when you're trying to refer veterans to services like psychological support and other things that they might need, that there are long waits in the Territory, then maybe in other jurisdictions and how long, are people typically waiting for things like that?

EMMA WHITEHEAD: At Mates4Mates we have a team of skilled health professionals who are able to serve veterans and their family members within this centre in a reasonable time.

JOURNALIST: I mean, in the community, people are saying sometimes in three weeks, four weeks for your first psychological appointment, are you able to offer it much sooner than that? For example.

EMMA WHITEHEAD: Mates4Mates have recruited psychologists to our services, and those psychologists will be making assessments and offering clients appointments to meet their needs as, as early as possible.

JOURNALIST: What kinds of things are you seeing with people who have fallen through the cracks in the past? (inaudible)

EMMA WHITEHEAD: Mates4Mates, we see people who come from a range of backgrounds and have a range of needs. Everyone's different, but I think one of the things that we observe is that the social connections that people make are a real enabler in, in feeling supported and feeling purposeful and part of a community.

LUKE GOSLING: Great. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Thanks everybody.

END

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