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Australia could suffer a wave of veteran suicides similar to that after the Vietnam War unless the nation moves past a focus on wrongdoing by Australian troops in Afghanistan and recognises the admirable work of Special forces soldiers, according to a bipartisan parliamentary committee.<\/p>\n
The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade has also expressed alarm that the defence force\u2019s war-fighting abilities will soon be degraded by the constant need to respond to natural disasters, leaving the nation vulnerable to attack by hostile forces.<\/p>\n
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Australia could suffer a wave of veteran suicides similar to that after the Vietnam War unless the nation moves past a focus on wrongdoing by Australian troops in Afghanistan, a parliamentary committee has recommended.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Fairfax<\/cite><\/p>\n Labor MP and defence subcommittee chair Julian Hill said there had been \u201ca clear and unequivocal acknowledgment by senior leaders of an institutional failure over a decade ago in Afghanistan in upholding international law and the standards expected\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe subcommittee concluded that, frankly speaking, it is time to draw a line in the sand and \u201cMost Australians who served in Afghanistan did so with distinction.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill wrote that the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS) \u201chas a proud history, has accepted responsibility, sought to learn from past cultural failings and transformed\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a society, Australia risks repeating another Vietnam and callously increasing veteran The Brereton Report, delivered in November 2020, found \u201ccredible\u201d evidence of allegations that 25 Australian soldiers had murdered 39 Afghan civilians, and pointed to a disturbing \u201cwarrior culture\u201d that had developed within elements of the SAS.<\/p>\n The Age<\/em>, The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> and The Canberra Times<\/em> won a landmark defamation case brought by decorated former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith in June after the court found they had proven he was a war criminal, murderer and bully.<\/p>\n Roberts-Smith is appealing the decision.<\/p>\n While Australians rightly expect public institutions to confront wrongdoing and for individuals to be held to account, Hill said: \u201cPast failures, of course, in any human endeavour must be kept in perspective and need not define an institution or every individual provided that change has occurred.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic discourse and some media reporting in relation to these events has implicitly and wrongly conflated the past and the present.<\/p>\n \u201cThe events of concern occurred well over a decade ago.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rightful acceptance of institutional and collective responsibility for cultural failings, and the process of holding individuals to account, must not be allowed to tar the reputations of the majority of those who served then and who serve today.\u201d<\/p>\n The tabling of the report came a day after royal commissioner Nick Kaldas told the National Press Club the defence establishment was not doing enough to tackle a crisis of veteran suicide, accusing top brass of \u201cgoing through the motions\u201d rather than trying to create meaningful change.<\/p>\n The committee also said it was firmly of the view that the defence force \u201cmust be seen as a force of last resort to aid the civilian community in natural disasters\u201d and to only be called upon when the state and territory emergency services are genuinely overwhelmed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ADF cannot continue to be seen as some sort of \u2018shadow workforce\u2019, especially in circumstances where certain states or territories have not adequately resourced and increased With half of all Defence members being called upon to provide disaster relief over recent years, the report found there \u201ca real risk now that the ADF\u2019s war fighting capabilities will soon be degraded\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPut plainly again, if the civilian community are over-reliant on the ADF to provide responses to now predictable annual natural disasters in Australia and our near region, this provides an easy opportunity to take hostile cyber, kinetic or hybrid actions coercing governments to make impossible choices,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n \u201cThese words and these conclusions should not be taken lightly by Australians or any parliamentarian.\u201d<\/p>\n The government\u2019s defence strategic review, released in April, recommended that defence personnel only be used as a \u201cforce of last resort\u201d to ensure members of the military are not distracted from their responsibility to defend the nation.<\/p>\n
rebalance our national conversation about this period,\u201d Hill wrote in the forward to a report tabled in parliament on Thursday.<\/p>\n
suicide if we lose perspective and balance,\u201d he wrote, summarising the views of the multi-party committee.<\/p>\n
their own capabilities, and community resilience and responses,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n