AS uncomfortable as it is for Port Stephens resident Tonia Keyte to share her story publicly, she feels it's important that people hear real stories, from real people.
Ms Keyte is one of the 886 people who have participated in a private session as part of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, and the author of the thousands of submissions made, a total of 5889.
The commission's official closing ceremony takes place today (Wednesday, August 28) and those who attend or tune in will hear from Ms Keyte, and others with lived experience, whose stories have been recorded for sharing.
"As uncomfortable as it might be for me to step out of my comfort zone and actually speak up, and put my name to it ... it is completely overshadowed by the devastation that I feel, and the magnitude of loss and suffering that's happening in the veteran community," Ms Keyte said.
"I need to say it out loud and be a voice for those who can no longer use their voice because they're no longer with us ... and keep trying to bring about change. Otherwise, change is never going to happen. It hasn't happened so far and it's never going to happen if we don't."
Her sentiments echo those of Commissioner Peggy Brown, who made similar comments recently about the winding up of the commission.
"I'm trying to remain optimistic," Commissioner Brown said.
"Our role is finished, it's really up to the government of the day - and the public and the media, who may demand of the government that they actually do the things that we say and solve the problems that have been dormant for decades."
There have been 57 inquiries into the Australian Defences Force and 770 recommendations made, soon to be followed by the commission's recommendations made in its final report to be handed down on September 9.
In their interim report, tabled on August 11, 2022, the commission called for additional Department of Veteran Affairs staff to start tackling a backlog of 41,799 claims.
Recognition
Among the wins was the fact that Defence had acknowledged "for the first time ever" that there was a nexus between service and suicidality and suicide, Commissioner Brown said.
"Now, you can't tackle a problem unless you accept there's a problem there - that's a huge change," she said.
Another issue raised in the commission was the fact that the rate of suicide for females who had left the service was much higher than both the male and the general population.
It's an issue close to the heart of Ms Keyte, who was forced out of the air force just short of three years after joining at the end of 1989 at the age of 18.
Ms Keyte's lived experience includes as the daughter of a veteran, her father, Rick Keyte, who was in the air force, and the granddaughter of Bruce Keyte, who was a POW on the Burma railway.
Forced out
"I had signed on for another three years, and at that time I was actually presented with a prefilled application for quick release and got told to sign it or I'd be made to wish I had," she said.
"I had no choice. I had to get out because, and I had endured nearly three years of bullying and harassment and threats to my personal safety. And in the end, I just couldn't any longer."
She dealt with her trauma with dissociative amnesia, and wasn't diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), when she recovered her first memory while driving home from work as a registered nurse in mental health.
"Fortunately I managed to pull off the side of the road, get through the memory and get home safely," Ms Keyte said.
"And after that, it was opening Pandora's box and all of the memories were flooding back. And I was just in crisis. And I started remembering everything that had happened to me on the RAF base by the Australian service men and women."
Home-based battle
What many people don't understand, she said, is that you don't have to go to war to end up with PTSD, or be overseas to be fighting for your life.
"What people don't realise, and they need to start realising, is that we have Australians now fighting for their lives every day in Australia, from other Australians.
"And the fact that the sheer volume of numbers of people that we've lost in Australia from suicide as opposed to in combat ... there's no such thing as worse or better, but their trauma is just as valid and just as important and we really need to fight it."
Commissioner Nick Kaldas, who sat with Ms Keyte during her private hearing, said one of the big challenges would be to make sure cultural change permeated all the way down, especially to the middle ranks.
"A lot of the persistent culture within the military sits at that level, and that's the level that really needs to focus on what we're talking about and implementing that change themselves," Commissioner Kaldas said.
One of the biggest changes being recommended is a permanent body to monitor and report on the progress and quality of implementation of recommendations from this royal commission, as well as relevant previous inquiries and reviews.
According to the interim report, the Australian Government has formally responded to fewer than half of the 57 previous inquiries or reports submitted to them, and the commission has found a clear failure of accountability, lack of action in addressing the findings of those prior reviews and inquiries, and an inability to learn from lessons of the past to inform future practices.
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