Only a fraction of more than 100 recommendations made by a defence and veteran suicide royal commission have been delivered.
The federal government will on Thursday lay out its progress on implementing the damning inquiry’s final report almost a year after it was handed down.
Nine recommendations had been completed, with work under way on a further 110, Veterans’ Affairs and Defence Personnel Minister Matt Keogh will tell parliament.
“We want Australians to be attracted to serving our nation in our Australian Defence Force, and confident that they and their families will be well supported by their leaders, their mates and the broader Defence organisation,” he will say.
Labor provided its response in December, accepting the overwhelming majority of the 122 recommendations.
A task force set up in 2024 to guide reform found four priority areas, such as the establishment of the Defence and Veterans’ Service Commission and addressing military sexual misconduct.
The commission, legislated within three months of the government’s response, will receive $44.5 million in funding over four years and will help lead the delivery of other recommendations.
It will be operational by the end of September, as the government recruits a commissioner to head the body.
Sexual misconduct remained a “systemic” issue for the Australian Defence Force, with the government agreeing to a standalone inquiry into the issue.
While progress is being made to get the inquiry up and running, no time frame has been set for its start.
Chief of the Defence Force Admiral David Johnston issued an interim directive last November that serious misconduct be taken into account when deciding to suspend or kick out troops.
The government is expected to bring on legislation that will allow defence force personnel convicted of sexual crimes to be booted from the military.
Work is also continuing to ensure troops convicted of serious crimes during their military service get a civilian record of their offending.
This involves co-operation between civil agencies and government departments to feed records into the national police reference system.
Following the royal commission, an independent inquiry by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force began in 2024 into claims the military justice system had been “weaponised” to cause harm to some personnel.
Mr Keogh will say the inquiry uncovered systems that were “frankly broken, of culture that was toxic, and that simply not enough was being done to support our Aussie personnel in and following service”.
The royal commission found 1677 serving and former serving defence personnel had died by suicide between 1997 and 2021 – more than 20 times the number killed in active duty during the same period.
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