SUBJECT: Labor’s call for a Royal Commission into veterans’ suicide.

SHAYNE NEUMANN, SHADOW MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL: Veterans’ suicide is a national shame and a national tragedy. Today, the Prime Minister has an opportunity. Today is a day of reckoning. There is now overwhelming support for a Royal Commission. The RSLs in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have come out with a rally on the front lawn of Parliament. The Prime Minister shouldn't split this issue. He should come out and support a Royal Commission. His National Commissioner bill in the Senate was friendless. There is a resolution concurrent in the House of Representatives today that can put this issue to bed. A Royal Commission is necessary. Veterans are dying at twice the rate of the general population. More people have died in veterans' suicide situations and in operational matters in the last two decades than those who died in war operations of this country. Listen to the voices of people, Julie-Ann Finney, the grieving families. Put aside your option C, put aside your stubbornness, do the right thing today. Announce a Royal Commission. Even your backbenchers support a Royal Commission. This resolution will pass today in the House as it did in the Senate. It is time for the Prime Minister's day of reckoning to do the right thing. You are good at shifting blame, shifting responsibility. Stand up today, Prime Minister. Do the right thing by the veterans and their grieving families.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Thanks very much, Shayne. The Prime Minister needs to read the room. I said last week that he didn't so much have a tin ear as a wall of concrete. And he's had a wall of concrete when it comes to the cries of grieving families of our veterans. It is a national tragedy that more veterans have taken their lives than we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is an issue that won't go away. We decided as the Labor Party to call for a Royal Commission as the first under my leadership. We have done so because we listened to the families of veterans and we responded. The Prime Minister responded with spin. He responded by saying they had something better than a Royal Commission. But the truth is, it's not. The truth is that when families and veterans examined the details of what the Prime Minister had announced, they decided that it just wasn't good enough, which is why the Senate last week, and today the House of Representatives, there is a majority of people who will vote for a Royal Commission. I pay tribute to the extraordinary courage of women like Julie-Ann Finney, who has campaigned on behalf of her late son. She has shown resilience. She's shown courage. And I respect and applaud her today. The Prime Minister needs to get on board with the rest of Australia on this issue. I also pay tribute to the Daily Telegraph for the ongoing campaign that they've held. They, very much along with the families of veterans, put this agenda front and centre. And they deserve praise for that. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, the Prime Minister has told 2GB this morning that the Government won't oppose the motion. So I guess the question is, if the Reps, with the Coalition support, lets this motion go through, what is the obligation on Morrison then to actually call the Royal Commission? Can he wait a number of weeks before doing so?

ALBANESE: Well, it's more tricky words from the Prime Minister, isn't it? This should be above politics. But we get more spin. He won't oppose the motion. How about he supports the motion and support what the Parliament is asking for? We live in a democracy. Parliament matters. We don't live in a system whereby the Prime Minister just gets to make decisions by himself. And the Prime Minister needs to respect the Parliament. We know he shuts down parliamentary debate. No Prime Minister has ever shown so much contempt for the Parliament as Scott Morrison. On this issue, he needs to listen to the national Parliament.

JOURNALIST: The Prime Minister says that a Royal Commission isn't a silver bullet issue, it needs to work with ongoing support mechanisms. Do you agree with that?

ALBANESE: The Prime Minister has not had a point during this debate that has gone on for too long now. The Prime Minister ducks and weaves. He should have listened to the families who were calling for a Royal Commission sometime ago, early in his prime ministership. This is a Government that's been in office for eight long years. And over that eight long years increasingly, what it shows is that it's out of touch. And like a lot of governments have reached towards the end of their period in which they should be in office, they get more ragged. And we saw that last week with the industrial relations legislation, where in an act of petulance, they withdrew measures like dealing with wage theft that had support of every parliamentarian. We see that with Scott Morrison's actions last week with regard to the march that occurred one week ago today. And we see it with this issue. The Prime Minister needs to listen. We need to establish a Royal Commission. And it should be established now. 

JOURNALIST: If you could be assured by the Prime Minister that there will be a Royal Commission, would Labor consider supporting the Government's proposal for a stand-in Commissioner in conjunction? Can we have both? 

ALBANESE: We support a Royal Commission. And what the Government tried to do was establish a process to avoid having a Royal Commission. The Government is within its rights to set up standing bodies. But we need a Royal Commission.

JOURNALIST: But you voted against in the Senate?

ALBANESE: We need a Royal Commission. We voted in favour of a Royal Commission. And what we said was we weren't going to play games with second-best. Veterans and their families deserve the best. And the best outcome is a Royal Commission.

ENDS