Opening of Goldsworthy Veterans' and Families' Centre

I'd like to start by acknowledging the traditional owners on the land of which we're all coming together today, the Noongar people of South Western Australia I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. And of course I acknowledge all of the current serving and former serving members of our Australian Defence Force here with us and the families that support them.

The Veteran and Family Hub network, which this Centre now forms part of, is a really important way in which the country, through the Australian Government, is able to make sure that we are playing a crucial role in connecting people who need something to those that can give it to them.

We know that we are blessed in many respects by the fact that there are some 7,000 odd service providers supporting our veteran community families across Australia. That is also one of the most confusing conglomeration of services you could possibly try to access and you've got to know that they're there and what they do and how they might help.

Making sure that we can support our veteran and family community in being able to access the right services that can support them in the way that they need, when they need it, is what centres like this are all about.

It's a really important element of what our government is trying to do in more broadly supporting our veteran community. We've had a Repatriation Commission and a Department of Veterans’ Affairs for over 100 years, and predominantly that's been about health, rehabilitation and compensation. But the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide made it very clear that there is a whole range of broader wellbeing supports that we need to make sure are available to our veteran communities and our hub network across Australia.

Centres like the Goldworthy Centre that we're opening here today play that really critical, on the ground role in making those connections. Now we're adding to that with the establishment of the new Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency.

I want to acknowledge Brendan, who's here today, who's the head of that new agency that started in July. That provides a more virtual presence and telephone presence so we have that national footprint but this on the ground footprint is critically important into how we support our veteran community across the country.

Now, we could have no more fitting person to name this centre after than Lieutenant Commander Goldsworthy. But importantly also, it is the Goldsworthy Veteran and Family Centre. The ‘and family’ part was something that was really important to us as a government in how we rolled out this hub.

We know that families are most often the first responder to a veteran that is in crisis, but the families themselves also need support. So, families, knowing that this is a centre and our hubs across the country are places that a family member can go to so that they can get support or so that they can learn about what support is available to support their veteran is really, really important.

As Duncan said, it's got a few little logos of the RSL, but it's not a sub branch. It's fundamentally different and it's fundamentally different in a couple of ways. One, it is a very welcoming environment to walk into and that is something that's common across all of our hubs across the country. But they're also different to each other because they reflect the communities that they're serving.

So, whilst there's absolutely a commonality in the intent of the hub network across Australia. Each hub, here the Goldsworthy Centre, reflects the needs of the fact that it is located in the community that supports our largest naval base in Australia. That's completely different to what Townsville needs or what Darwin needs. And it's good that we meet that local need.

And that's what the RSL, working with other ex-service organisations and service providers here in the Rockingham area and the broader southern suburbs of Perth, has been able to provide, working closely with that community to make sure that the services that are needed here are provided.

There's one other element I really want to highlight because this is really important and it's something that Western Australia really excels at on the national stage and its collaboration in our ex-service community. The partnership between RSL and Legacy is a great example of that. Another great example of that is that the Goldsworthy Centre is a centre here in Rockingham but the funding of over $5 million that we provided as an Australian Government doesn't just support the development of this centre, it also supported the RSL working with the SAS association to develop the satellite software site as well.

I was very proud to be able to formally open that site yesterday up at Campbell Barracks, importantly at the barracks, but outside the wire so it is open to the veteran and family community. Really appropriately located there with the health centre where DMFS is going to be moving to as well, in a building that holds great importance to the SAS community and right next door to where the association itself operates from, being supported by Open Arms, being supported by the SAS Welfare Trust as well.

All of those different organisations, all committed to an outcome of improving the support that is available to our veteran community and their families, making sure that that meets the needs of that community up in the western suburbs of Perth, around the SAS regiment. The Goldsworthy Centre here meeting the needs of the southern suburbs and particularly the Rockingham area around HMAS Stirling. That collaboration, that cooperation is something that Western Australia has really led on and we're seeing that now happen more and more across the country - something else that the Royal Commission itself calls out.

There's a need to make sure we see that collaboration and engagement. And I really want to congratulate everybody here and everybody that's been part of bringing that together, because you are leading the nation in that. And what's really important about that is that is what delivers better outcomes for our veteran community and their families. So, can I say thank you to everyone that we've gotten to this point? A lot's been made about the building and some of us were here when we announced the location originally and we saw the first building and I think the vision, this is the example of how vision can become reality. And I think we should really acknowledge that and that there was commitment and that the board of the RSL, as Duncan said, maybe they shouldn't have gone forward with this, but they went forward with it because it was their number one objective in their constitution.

We as a nation are blessed by the fact that we have organisations like the RSL, like Legacy and so many others where that’s their number one [inaudible] and our veteran community and their families are the better for it. And as a government, we're able to make sure that services are most appropriately delivered to the people who need it by being able to work in partnership with those organisations. Governments are great at bureaucracy, there's things that only government should do, but when we can partner with the people that are on the ground with a lived experience, who can bring the expertise and the flexibility to make sure people get the right service at the right time, we get much better outcomes overall.

So, I'm very proud to have been able to make sure we can provide the funding, but to be able to work in partnership with RSL, with the ex-service community here in Western Australia, to deliver on an amazing centre here. Because as good as the building is, it's what's going to be happening in here, the people who are in here and the connection that's been made to us services in the broader community as well, that's going to make the fundamental difference. So, I wish everybody the very best in that endeavour. I thank everyone for the work that they have done to get us to this very important milestone and for all of the work to come to support our veterans and their families. 

ENDS