Radio Interview, 2CC Canberra

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

HOST, STEPHEN CENATIEMPO:  To something that we covered extensively throughout the course of its operation was the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, chaired by former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas. And as I said right throughout the process that it was the gold standard for how Royal Commissions should be conducted in this country. Often Royal Commissions are expensive, long winded, they hand down recommendations and those recommendations are ignored by government. But this Royal Commission was handled in an exemplary fashion and I take my hat off to Nick Kaldas and his fellow Commissioners. Yesterday the Federal Government released its response to the Final Report from that Royal Commission, setting out what it says is a real plan for meaningful and enduring reform for Defence personnel, veterans and families. To talk to us about this, we're joined by the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Matt Keogh. Minister, good morning.

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

CENATIEMPO: 122 recommendations. Only 104 have been agreed to or agreed to in principle. Why only 104?

MINISTER KEOGH: So, the 104 we've been able to agree or agree in principle right now, and we very much recognise the urgency of responding to this Royal Commission and making the necessary changes as quickly as we can. But for the 17 that have been noted, there is just further work that needs to happen to be able to get to a position of actioning those recommendations. That's why they've been noted, but it's also why we've established a task force in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, separate from Defence, separate from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, to work through what we can do with those other 17 noted recommendations. So, that's absolutely not a no. It's just working through how we do that. We're not in a position to do that, but we wanted to be able to go forward and say to the veteran community, this is Government's intent around the Royal Commission recommendations, because we do understand the urgency and importance of this work.

CENATIEMPO: One of the recommendations was not supported. Which one was that?

MINISTER KEOGH: So, that was part of one recommendation which was about what's called the service differential and it's something that's been a feature of veterans entitlement legislation for over 100 years now. And it's where we provide a higher level of compensation for injury for those people that are fought in what we call operational conditions. So, if they've been at war or in what's called non war like conditions, as opposed to peacetime or training type injuries, that is something that the veteran community feel very strongly about, maintaining that differential. There's quite a bit of division across the community about that as well. And so we've decided not to adopt that particular part of that recommendation from the Royal Commission. But as I say, it's part of one recommendation, the only bit that's not been agreed by government.

CENATIEMPO: So, what's going to change immediately?

MINISTER KEOGH: So, what you're seeing immediately is we're standing up the Defence and Veterans’ Service Commission. This is the oversight body that was called for by the Royal Commission. There'd been a lot of commentary and people pushing for such a body to follow on from the Royal Commission. Because in the lead up to the Royal Commission, I know you're aware there was so many different inquiries that had happened, so many different recommendations. Not all of those had been implemented by past governments or by the ADF. And there was a desire to have an accountability body there and we've said we will do that. That will be the Defence and Veterans’ Service Commission. We're setting that up, we're setting up the task force to look at those other recommendations. We're also - DVA will start this work co designing with the veterans community, a new wellbeing agency within the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, looking at those broader wellbeing factors to support our veterans and families, and also working with the veteran community and the ex-service organisations to establish a peak body for ex-service organisations in Australia.

CENATIEMPO: Given that it looks like we're going to an early election, given that the legislative decks were cleared last week, does any of this happen before we go to the polls?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, certainly those bodies and that work that I've just taken you through starts now. There will be work that we will continue to do next year. The election will be whenever the election is sometime in the first half of next year. But that doesn't stop the work of government. But it's also why it's so important that as government, we've set out very clear marker here with our response to all 122 recommendations. This is our intent and that's important that we've made that clear to the Department of Defence, to the ADF to DVA, so that Government can be doing that work that's necessary regardless of when an election is. And I'm very happy to see that the Opposition is supportive of what we're doing here as well, so that regardless of elections, the necessary changes will happen here.

CENATIEMPO: One of the concerns I have, and I know this is more a question for Richard Marles than for yourself, but the recent surveys have suggested that the faith, or, I guess, confidence that Defence personnel have in the current leadership of the ADF is sorely lacking. How do you address that? Because obviously the perception of leadership and the perception of the culture within the ADF plays into all of these recommendations as well.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, culture is incredibly important and I'm happy to see that there's been improvements in a number of the factors that are measured in the census that you're referring to, which is a survey of the Department of Defence as opposed to the Defence Force itself. And we have seen some important improvements in that census as well. But you're absolutely right, culture is terribly important. And a lot of the recommendations that we've got here in the Royal Commission Report that we're agreeing to go to those issues of culture. Now some of them, they don't look like cultural issues, but they absolutely have an impact on cultural issues, and that's why it's so important that we're moving forward with these recommendations. I'm sure, you know, everyone would agree if you just had a recommendation that said improve culture. Well, that's a great concept, but you need to know what to do. And that's what the Royal Commission set out for us. And that's really important. 

CENATIEMPO: With regards to the nitty gritty with your own department Minister, I spoke to, when I spoke to him on a regular basis, a veterans advocate who works on behalf of other veterans. And he had a client a couple of weeks ago who was just at his wit's end and had gotten to the point where he couldn't fill out any more forms and was in a vulnerable state. And he said, look, I can't do this anymore. I want this other person to look after it for me. And the response from DVA was, well, you need to fill out this form. There's got to be a better way of dealing with the veterans on the ground and having somebody at the end of a phone who can actually do some of these things for them. How deep are you getting into this?

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, that's what advocates do. They do that work for veterans, and obviously they need to be authorised by a veteran to undertake that work, I think everyone understands the very important privacy implications, but also these are big financial decisions as well. And so if you're appointing someone to act on your behalf, that's got to be in writing. It's not a terribly detailed form either, but that's why the advocate community is so important and it's also why we're doing a lot of work with advocates across the country and the organisations, those ex-service organisations that host those advocates and support those advocates in their work about improving the standards for advocates and streamlining the processes to support them. So, we've really seen a really big uptake now of the use of the online portals for lodging claims, making it easier. We've done a lot of work simplifying those forms because completely get that it is a complete - I can't use that word - but it is really hard for people to comprehend these very lengthy, detailed forms. We're trying to simplify that not just for the veterans, actually, but also for the medical professionals. There were so many forms, so many pages, it was doing their heads in as well. We've reduced the number of forms, but we've made the form shorter, more simple, so that they can be more easily completed for a veteran by their medical professional as well as by advocates.

CENATIEMPO: But I'm talking about the fact of, you know, if you've got a case manager on the phone, and I said this when I was speaking to this veterans advocate a couple of weeks ago, is that surely the person on the other end of the phone can say, mate, I know what you're going through here, let's fill this out together, I'll do it for you?

MINISTER KEOGH: So, there are, there's a lot of things that can happen that way between a veteran and DVA and happen regularly. There are some things that do require more evidence to support a claim and that's where advocates are very helpful. At the moment, we're also trialling a process in some areas where we've got DVA staff embedded with advocates, working with veterans to assist in lodging claims and that's really helpful to the veteran and to the advocate. It's also helpful for DVA because they're getting a better frontline experience of what it means to support a veteran as an advocate and the issues exactly like that, like just not being able to deal with more forms, so that we can help improve the experience we give to veterans as well.

CENATIEMPO: Matt, you mentioned that you're going to have a task force in PM&C to look at these 17 other recommendations. Who's going to be on that and who makes that up?

MINISTER KEOGH: So, there's going to be a range of people working through that task force and we're about to make some key appointments to that group within the Department to run that. But it's about bringing what's critical about it, is this is not going to be an insular group that just sits within part of a government department. It has to be reaching out and engaging with the veteran community, with families. It needs to benefit from lived experience. It's also going to have to work with the state governments because some of these recommendations involve the states as well and coordinating with them. So, it's really a critical way of bringing in that external expertise to advise government on how we can work through those remaining recommendations and some of the ones that we've agreed that need a bit more detailed work as well so that we're best able to move quickly in implementing these recommendations.

CENATIEMPO: Minister, thank you so much for your time this morning.

MINISTER KEOGH: It's been great to be with you, Stephen. Cheers.

CENATIEMPO: Matt Keogh, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs.

ENDS