Australian Defence Association Executive Director Neil James says people have “chosen to ignore” the issue of veteran suicides, with one key reason being that so few Australians now have “any personal experience of military service”.
His comments come after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced plans for a Royal Commission into veteran suicides in order to address the mental toll deployment takes on Australian soldiers.
“This has been a serious problem for some time,” Mr James told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.
“People have chosen to ignore it, there are many varied reasons for it”.
“But one of the key ones is so few Australians now have any personal experience of military service – even in their extended family, they don’t understand the problem and the veterans come back to a national community that doesn’t understand what they’ve been through.”