Radio interview, 2CC Canberra

SUBJECTS: Final Report from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

HOST, STEPHEN CENATIEMPO: As we've been discussing all morning, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide yesterday handed down its Final Report with 122 recommendations, several of them related to the culture within the Defence Force and others about structural changes to DVA, etcetera. Matt Keogh is the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and joins us now. Minister, good morning.

MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL, MATT KEOGH: Good morning, Stephen. Great to be with you.

CENATIEMPO: Look, this, I've said this all along, that this has been the gold standard on how a Royal Commission should be handled. It's the blueprint for how future Royal Commissions should be conducted. And I know the Government's, well, every Government's response to any Royal Commission is we're going to take time to look through the recommendations and what that generally means is we're going to sit on it for months and months and months. A lot of these recommendations could be implemented today.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, Stephen, as you point out, we received the Royal Commission Report yesterday, so we've only just started to look at it. And today is World Suicide Prevention Day, and I started this morning down at the Carillon with the Lifeline Out of the Shadows Walk event to remember those that have lost their lives to suicide. And when we think about the basis of this Royal Commission, it's because we saw that the rate of suicide amongst serving personnel, veterans, is significantly higher than we see across the general Australian population. We recognise the urgency of responding to the recommendations in this Royal Commission quickly. But there are 122 recommendations, some seven volumes of Report which run to over 3100 pages. There are certainly some recommendations there that can be moved on more quickly than others, and the Royal Commission, even in the recommendations, makes that observation. But we need to work through this in detail, because amongst those seven volumes, it's not just the recommendations themselves, it's the information that goes with them. But we will respond to this quickly because we very much recognise the urgency.

CENATIEMPO: You've had an Interim Report for a couple of weeks now. Surely you start the work when you get that Report, don't you?

MINISTER KEOGH: No, that's not true. We only got the Report for the first time yesterday.

CENATIEMPO: No, no, I'm talking about the Interim Report.

MINISTER KEOGH: The Interim Report we got in 2022. We responded to that the following month. We've taken action on every recommendation in that Interim Report and that includes dealing with access to information for the loved ones of those that have taken their own life. It included work with the Royal Commission to improve the operation of the Royal Commission itself. And it has included removing the backlog of claims that DVA had amassed, some 42,000 claims and hadn't been looked at, and that backlog's now being cleared. We've properly resourced the Department and importantly, we've introduced into Parliament already the legislation to simplify and harmonise the system that supports our veterans. So, we've taken action on that Report. That was two years ago, but we've only just received the Final Report yesterday.

CENATIEMPO: One of the criticisms that I've had from some veterans organisations about the recommendations themselves, is they don't deal enough with the impact on families. The other issue with DVA is that they say that, well, you can resource DVA all you like, but unless the representatives are trained and actually have direct contact with some of these veterans organisations from, I guess, well, empathy is probably not the right word, but an example, for instance, that was given to me this morning was, you know, go out and listen to how loud an armoured vehicle is, for instance, because then you can identify that somebody who's been working with one of these things for ten years is more than likely going to have hearing problems. And the other aspect that I see is that we tend to, and I'm all for making sure we don't have anybody rort the system, but surely there's got to be a level of benefit of doubt for somebody that puts on a uniform and says, I'll take a bullet for you.

MINISTER KEOGH: So, yeah, there's a number of issues to unpack there, certainly. I think it is important to recognise this issue of training is really important. And when we came into Government two years ago, over a third of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs claims processing staff were labour hire. And so what we saw was a really high degree of churn. It takes six months to do the training, to be a delegate, a decision maker in claims processing, and we would see staff turnover within that six months or shortly thereafter. And so what we have done is brought on 500 additional full time APS staff in the Department to process claims, which means we retain them or able to properly train them. They're able to develop that culture of supporting veterans. When it comes to medical evidence and issues about what's the effect of an explosion or firing artillery, that is a role that's undertaken by medical experts based on medical evidence, and then the Department does have to apply that. And we have, the work we've been doing with employing staff and improving culture. You know, you referred to empathy, making sure there's a good understanding of the nature of service. It's very important. And indeed, one of the issues that we see, and it's touched on in both the Interim Report and the Final Report, is that there is a - for those that have been deployed into warlike or non warlike conditions with the Defence Force, there is a lower threshold for them to cross in proving their claims with DVA. So, that issue is recognised. And one of the good things about the reforms we're making in the legislation is that with the single piece of legislation, the single scheme going forward is that there will be presumptive liability there where certain conditions we recognise if you've done certain types of service, you're going to have that condition. We'll just approve that. And so we're making sure we've got that in the single scheme going forward to improve claims processing, makes it quicker, makes it easier for the veteran. And so we've recognised that in the reforms that we're making.

CENATIEMPO: Minister, from the perspective of actually implementing the recommendations, obviously some of them are going to be in your Ministerial portfolio, others will be in Richard Marles, how do you divide that up? I mean, what's the process for actually making sure that these recommendations are implemented?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, certainly I'm the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, but I'm also the Minister for Defence Personnel. And nearly all of the recommendations that are in relation to the ADF and the Department of Defence sit in the Defence Personnel space. There'll be some that do not. And obviously, I work closely with Richard in any event, on all of these recommendations, as well as the Attorney-General, because there's some things that work outside of the Defence portfolio alone. And Richard and I work very closely together to make sure that we've got a whole of government approach to these issues and also we have to engage with the states. There's a number of recommendations in here that go to things that the states need to do and coordinating better with the states. And so we'll be undertaking that work as well as we develop our response. And that's why not just the volume of what's there, but also that requirement to work with the states on some of these recommendations means we need to work through that with them in developing our response.

CENATIEMPO: A lot of the recommendations are also procedural with regards to processes within the military itself. Obviously, that's going to have to be enacted by Defence Force leadership. Do you have the ability, or does Richard Marles have the ability to actually compel them to undertake these changes?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, certainly, if the Government takes the view that those changes need to be made, then they'll be made.

CENATIEMPO: Minister, I appreciate your time this morning. Thanks for joining us.

MINISTER KEOGH: Been great to be with you. Cheers.

CENATIEMPO: Minister Matt Keogh. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs. 

END