Labor’s shadow minister for defence,
Brendan O’Connor, has welcomed the announcement of the royal commission into veterans’ suicides, but says the decision should have been made earlier:
We are glad to see the government has made a decision, although it does seem it has done so begrudgingly, belatedly and because of the pressure that has been brought to bear upon them by the veterans’s community, the veterans’s families. If anyone has spoken to
Julie-Ann Finney, as I have, as many members of parliament have and others have, about the tragedy of her son’s suicide, David, and they would understand why she and other parents and family members of veterans suiciding needed to see this decision today.