Commission Chair Nick Kaldas - End of Year Address

hi I'm Nick kaldis chair of the royal commission into defense and Veteran suicide on behalf of my fellow Commissioners I want to say thank you to everyone who has contributed to our work over the past year we've now received more than 3 000 submissions from serving and ex-serving members family and friends with lived experience advocacy and support groups and experts and we've heard from more than 250 Witnesses and held more than 270 private sessions we thank all the lived experienced Witnesses for their courage and bravery in sharing their stories with us every submission is important and will help inform our inquiry we're going to continue to accept submissions until the 13th of October 2023 and we encourage you to have your say it's been a very busy but productive year for the commission this year we've held seven public hearings across the country and visited 14 military bases to speak to serving members about some of the issues that relate to our inquiry Arrington report was handed down in August it contained 13 urgent recommendations and the government has accepted 11 of them and work is already underway to implement them work is also happening in other quarters stimulated by the work of the commission the national ex-service organization's Forum held in Canberra saw over 70 ex-service organizations working together towards a common goal of achieving reform within the sector to better serve current and ex-serving defense members and their families but we still have a long way to go and there are many topics that we will explore before our final report in June 2024 early next year we'll be releasing some key discussion papers and research and then later in the year we intend to release a special report to find out more head to our website our offices will be closed for a brief time over the Christmas and New Year period from the 23rd of December to the 3rd of January we understand and appreciate that the holidays may be an emotional time for many of those who are following our inquiry if you're thinking about matters that relate to the Royal commission and it causes you distress we urge you to please seek help from any number of services available you can find all of those details on our website on behalf of everyone at the Royal commission we wish you a safe and peaceful holiday and we look forward to seeing you all in 2023