Television interview, Sky News Australia

SUBJECTS: Government Response to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

HOST, CHENG LEI: Joining me now live is Veterans' Affairs Minister Matt Keogh. Hi there. Minister Keogh. Thank you for joining us. So, where do we go from here? What about a timeline and the funding and the feedback mechanism for implementing these recommendations?

MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL, MATT KEOGH: Good afternoon. It's great to be with you. Today we've announced our response to the Royal Commission's recommendations. The Royal Commission only handed down its report in September and there was 122 recommendations. We are accepting the vast majority of those with 104 either agreed or agreed in principle. There's 17 that we have noted and most of those are going to be referred to a task force that will consider more work about how we can still act on those recommendations as well. They are more complicated. Some of them involve engaging with the states, for example. But we still want to take action in respect of those recommendations. There's only part of one recommendation that we have not agreed to, but critically, we've accepted recommendation 122 to set up a statutory oversight body, which will be the Defence and Veterans’ Service Commission. And this will provide the necessary oversight in terms of implementing the recommendations, making sure that not just our government but governments in the future are delivering for personnel, veterans and families, and providing advice to government about how we can continue to improve that.

LEI: And how are we going to measure the effectiveness of these measures?

MINISTER KEOGH:  That's part of what we need to look at through the work that the task force is going to be undertaking. And indeed, some of the recommendations call for evaluations to be conducted in terms of some of the work that we're already doing. And there are a number of recommendations that the Royal Commission has made that go to research, conducting research in specific areas, but also more broadly around veteran wellbeing and coordinating that research so that we can see the effectiveness or otherwise or other areas that we can improve upon to support veterans. The Royal Commission outlined a number of factors that lead to or are related to suicidality, and they're obviously going to be key focus areas for the work that we're undertaking going forward as well.

LEI: There's now, I guess, coming up to Australia Day in January. Now there's a bit of controversy about pubs banning the celebration of the date. As the Veterans’ Affairs Minister, how do you think veterans feel about such controversy?

MINISTER KEOGH:  I'm sure many people will have different views about this. Private entities, businesses can do what they want in relation to this. It's not something that's controlled by government. And I suspect that veterans and other Australians will vote with their feet in terms of which pubs or other venues they choose to go to on Australia Day or any other day, based on how different organisations decide to behave to commemorate or celebrate key days in Australia's national calendar. And that's ultimately a matter for them. But I'm sure people will form their views and they will patronise or otherwise those venues.

LEI: How do you think we should best, you know, galvanise our nation?

MINISTER KEOGH:  Well, I think when it comes to the work that we are now doing in the response to the Royal Commission, the Royal Commission has been going for three years and the key thing that we saw over the course of those three years was the lived experience evidence. The people who have served our country and their families sharing their stories and experience of their time in Defence, or engaging with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, or their experience of tragically losing a loved one to suicide. And I think it's their stories and their braveness coming forward to tell those stories to the Royal Commission that galvanise the action of government and they galvanise, I think, the whole Australian community behind the need for us to take action. And that's exactly what we're doing and it's why we moved so quickly. If you think about this Royal Commission only handed down its final report in September. It's a seven volume report, it runs for over 3,000 pages and there's 122 recommendations. And we are today, less than three months later, providing the Government's response, saying what we are going to do, setting out bodies that we are going to establish the Defence and Veterans’ Service Commission - 

LEI: What have you heard from the veterans families? What have you heard from the veterans families about these recommendations?

MINISTER KEOGH:  Yes, the families that I've spoken to, the families I've spoken to today have been very complimentary of the Government moving so rapidly and being so broad in our acceptance of the recommendations. They're particularly pleased to see that we're establishing the Defence and Veterans’ Service Commission, the statutory oversight body that the Royal Commission called for and that so many in the veteran family and the broader veteran community were calling for during the course of this Royal Commission. So, I'm very happy to have received that very positive feedback. And as you would expect, they are now keenly watching government to ensure that we follow through with our implementation of these recommendations through the Commission, through the Task Force through the co design work that we're going to be undertaking in setting up a new veterans’ wellbeing agency in the Department of Veterans' Affairs. And we would expect them to be watching the work that we do and we look forward to working with them, the veterans community, the veteran family community, in that co design work, making sure that our implementation of these recommendations meets the needs of our veterans community.

LEI: Thank you so much for your time. Matt Keogh, Veterans' Affairs Minister.

MINISTER KEOGH:  Great to be with you.