Australia has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to act on military suicides but will have to overrule bureaucrats to save lives, amid a warning the defence force and federal departments cannot be trusted to solve the issue alone. or signup to continue reading That's according to three royal commissioners at the end of their three-year probe into the suicides of former and serving members of the nation's defence forces, described as a . The final report will be handed down on September 9, with Commissioner Nick Kaldas urging the government and wider defence community to grasp the "once-in-a-generation, possibly once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity to act.
He said there had been close to 60 previous inquiries into the issue over three decades but no improvement to suicide rates, with up to three deaths per fortnight. "We call on this government and succeeding governments to finally take the courageous step of overruling bureaucratic inertia and doing what is needed, what is necessary and what is right," Mr Kaldas told the ceremonial closing of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide on Tuesday. He said the men and women of the ADF had done everything asked of them and too many had paid a very dear price.
"Our nation is indebted to them and that debt must now be repaid," Mr Kaldas said. At least 1677 serving or former defence personnel died by suicide from 1997 to 2021, more than 20 times the number killed while on active duty during that time, according to the commissio.