Page 744 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 31 March 2021
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stain on our national conscience. We know that the rate of suicide in ex-serving men is 18 per cent higher than in the broader population of men. The rate of suicide in ex-serving women is 127 per cent higher than in the broader population of women.
Just take a moment to let that sink in. The rate of suicide in women who have left service is 127 per cent higher than in the broader population of women. Let me state again that we believe the rate of deaths doubled from October last year, around the time that media coverage of the Afghanistan files intensified—coverage that included public discussion of Australian Defence Force culture.
I do not often speak publicly about my work at Navy. I want to be able to speak positively about a place where I really felt that I could make a difference, both in technology and in workplace culture. But I cannot unsee what I have seen, I cannot unhear what I have heard, and I know that there is a deep problem within Defence culture.
I wish I was shocked at the disproportionate impact on women, but I have heard senior officers say that serving women would not be sexually assaulted if the Navy just never let them on ships in the first place; that there were serving women who found a boyfriend on board as soon as they went to sea, as protection from other men on board; lawyers’ briefs dismissing a civilian woman’s complaint of sexual assault because she chose to go onto the base; the women I worked with who talked about the days, earlier in their career, when some women hid the fact that they were married because that would have meant not being allowed to go to sea and limiting career progress; and the man who was physically assaulted and bullied at sea because he did not perform masculinity in a way that conformed to the extremely narrow standard of some of his colleagues.
Have we learnt nothing in recent weeks about dangerous workplace cultures, how they relate to power and how this is informed by ideas about gender? When the Brereton report was published in November, it felt like a kick in the guts to all of us who worked so hard to try and create a positive workplace culture and keep serving personnel connected and whole as human beings.
I can claim that I am not responsible because the offenders were not Navy and I did the best I could where I worked, but it does not feel good enough to me and it does not feel true. I do not have language suitable for this place to express what it feels like. Navy culture at its best encouraged us to set a high standard, to work hard, to show respect and support our team, and to take the right action when we saw a problem.
Governments, too, need to take the right action to support our veterans. A defence force is not made up of trucks, tents or guns; it is made up of people. What kind of society are we if we do not care for and support our people? This is an urgent national crisis. Many reviews and inquiries, narrower in scope and lesser in power, have failed to stem it. Every time we have an inquiry where independence, scope and powers are questioned and which fails to produce change, trust in those positions of authority is eroded. And veterans keep dying, every week. This cannot continue.
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