Nick Kaldas claims veteran suicide investigation is being hampered | 7.30

Nick caldas thanks very much for joining us you presented some damning statistics today on the rate of Veteran suicide compared to the general population uh 27 higher for for men 44 if they were a member of a permanent member of the service and more than a hundred percent higher for women are you able to say why why is the rate of Veteran suicide so much higher than the general Community I think it's a series of problems that they experience firstly through their service and then later on the operational experience and then what happens when they transition out and supposedly go back to a normal Civil Society there's there are things are better and there's definitely a Improvement in all the areas we're looking at but it's nowhere nearly satisfactory yet when you look at the service time what are the factors there um there are a number of things firstly there's the issue of uh the tempo if you like the operational Tempo uh certainly during the the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq there was a Reliance on a particular type of forces uh special for Special Forces perhaps um it's not for us to say but certainly what we have heard from people is that some people were called on to deploy 9 10 11 12 times that has to take a toll there's also the issue of people being moved around every two or three years and one veteran said to me in a private hearing that private session that his friends couldn't make his sons and daughters could not make friends because every two or three years they would move and they'd have to start again so there's definitely an impact on the families which has also been neglected apart from the individual himself you also mentioned the recruitment ads today what's the problem there we have heard from people in evidence that they felt that the recruitment ads were not realistic and they built unrealistic expectations about what service like was going to be like is it clear to you at least at this point that serving in the military is a causal Factor when it comes to the rate of suicide we think so yes uh I should stress that we think a large percentage of people have a positive experience from the military service they leave and they go on to happy normal lives but there is a percentage who also have issues uh and they're the ones we're obviously trying to deal with you were sharply critical of both defense and the Veterans Affairs Department today I'll come to Veterans Affairs but just on defense how would you describe the way defense deals with serving members who come forward with complaints of abuse or put their hand up asking for help we have heard a lot of evidence from people who felt they were immediately ostracized and victimized because they complained they break the Code of Silence we've also heard a lot of evidence from people who as soon as they put their hand up and say I'm not well whether it's physically or in terms of mental health they they call them lingers and I was surprised to find that the Defense Act the the act of parliament has an offense in it of malingering in this day and age I mean I'm not sure how you can possibly convince someone of that but it is a thing that if you put your hand up you're seeing as somebody who's malingering and there's no real consideration that the complaint might be genuine that the injury might be real that the person needs help and if you're not encouraging people to put their hand up they don't feel comfortable doing it they're not going to put their hand so as the weight of evidence telling you at the moment the defense is still not handling this appropriately we think there have definitely been improvements over the last few years and this isn't about attacking or criticizing individuals there is a cultural problem which has not been addressed by successive leadership over the last probably 25 years United defense has promised to set up a new mental health and well-being Branch but you've told that won't be fully resourced and operational until what is it 2025 yes and we've also been told that well we know that it wasn't established until two years into the life of the royal commission I don't think they're needed they should have needed or all commissioned to establish something like that the reality is with suicide statistics monitoring that space the government generally has not been watching there are we struggle to find accurate definitive statistics on many issues because they simply weren't watching what about Veterans Affairs how would you describe the way the department is dealing with veterans who come forward to Lodge a claim there have been many many who have said there was a positive experience and they've done well and it's just it's gone through but there are many more probably who have said they've had a very negative experience they felt they weren't believed they had to prove absolutely everything um and essentially they struggle to navigate the very complex set of legislation that they had to get through so would you say most you use the word most then most of those who go to Veterans Affairs to to Lodge a claim aren't being believed I'd say that there is a culture of questioning everything to the nth degree and certainly from what we know thus far the level of suspected fraud in claims appears to be minuscule and doesn't justify the level of adversariality that they have in dealing with clients so why is that adversary adversarial approach there it's been there for decades I'm told 20 30 or 30 years ago some people say it was a lot easier and they trusted what you said but I mean I can't think of people who have had injuries such as you you know missing limbs or serious back injuries that they could have incurred that somewhere else other than work and and there's no dispute often that the injury is real but if it's mental health mental health is problematic it's very difficult for people to prove that their experience what they've gone through has caused those injuries you have called for a powerful and ongoing independent uh oversight body to monitor defense both the Defense Force and the defense department and the Department of Veterans Affairs what exactly would such a body do there's a number of things firstly it would monitor this space and ensure that statistics are being gathered do analysis to see what what is actually happening where are the trends and patterns where the problems are and then to make recommendations about what ought to happen with that secondly if there are previous recommendations such as our Royal commission for instance they would ensure that those recommendations are followed up on there would be somebody watching to make sure that the things that have been promised and the things that have been requested are actually being followed up on the other thing is they there is no one at the moment who was watching both DVA and defense no one is looking at it holistically to assess the problems that veterans and serving members face and you mentioned getting information you've said you've been stymied that the Royal commission has been stymied from some government departments and agencies and defense in in getting the information you need that's part of the reason for you going public today before you finish this work just uh explain to us the sort of brick walls you've hit there have been many claims of public interest immunity parliamentary privilege cabinet and confidence basically every trick in the book has been pulled out at some point to stop us gaining access to documents does that tell you that the government and defense is serious about tackling this problem I'm not sure if it's defense or government or who I would blame but what I would say is that the legal representatives of those government departments and and and the government generally sort of didn't get the memo and I have to say we are not the first Royal commission to come up against this we have studied to some extent previous Royal commissions and everyone has had this problem there's almost a major or instant reaction by government departments and their lawyers to begin to pull up the fences and and begin to deny information using excuses Nick Alice thanks for joining us thanks very much for having me David