Veterans’ ultimate insult

PARENTS of dead veterans and injured former soldiers invited to a conference on Defence suicides have been told they have to pay $100 a day to attend.

The move has outraged the Defence and Veterans’ communities after several members recently received invitations to a symposium in Canberra on March 10 and 11, which included the daily charge. The invitation was sent from the office of the recently appointed interim National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide, Bernadette Boss.

Herbert MP and Afghanistan veteran Phillip Thompson said he was disgusted and had been urgently trying to ensure the fees would not be charged.

Mr Thompson said that members of the veterans community who had contacted him were extremely angry and upset about the move, which he lashed as “offensive”.

“The commissioner should be paying them for their knowledge about the issue, not the other way around,” he said.

Mr Thompson has sent a letter to Dr Boss saying that it was “unacceptable” that people who had the “lived experience that must be heard” were being forced to pay $100 a day for the “privilege”.

“Those insights are vital if we are to ever shine a light into the darkest corners of an issue that has festered in the shadows for far too long,” he said.

He also reflected on his own experience, saying that, having lost 10 mates to suicide, he could not “stress enough” how important it was to understand and put a stop to the “systematic issue of death by suicide” in the Defence and veterans’ communities.

“A seat at the table for those who have vital input should come with no cost attached.”

The invitation says that the symposium would inform a review of past Defence and veterans’ suicides under the theme of “prevention through understanding” and involve researchers, experts and practitioners. It offers attendance through live-streaming, however, in-person attendance is listed at $100 a day, including complimentary networking drinks on the first afternoon.