By Renee Wilson, CEO, Families of Veterans Guild 

Yesterday the Australian Government announced the biggest peacetime defence spend in our nation’s history. Nuclear submarines. Ghost Shark drones. Hypersonic missiles. A strategy built for what is looking to be the most challenging era since World War II for our nation. 

Buried deep in the document, there is a short section about people — our “most important capability” — with a thank you to ADF members and their families for their “continued commitment and service.” A thank you. After everything they give and will be expected to give. I am sure it is appreciated, but where is the firm commitment of an investment in people and their families in the $53bn boost to defence?  

The 2026 National Defence Strategy set out yesterday should be a wake-up call for Australia. We are living in dangerous times and need people willing to stand in the path of that danger. Their families will also need to make extraordinary sacrifices so Australia can remain strong, peaceful, and secure — these families will carry the long-term consequences of their loved ones’ service. In the 98-page document families are only mentioned four times.  

Meaningful action for families is a national imperative 

Like in the Strategy, people are repeatedly described as Defence’s most important capability, yet they remain chronically underinvested in. While the rhetoric around people and defence and veteran families is shifting — with families finally starting to receive more airtime in Defence and veteran circles — it is time to move beyond words and turn that recognition into meaningful action and investment.  

Meaningful action has been lacking for defence and veteran families for some time because the system of care and its key players assume:  

1. Family support must be conditional on what has happened to a veteran.
2. Families are supported when the veteran is supported.
3. Families do not need support because they did not serve.  

Our 2025 Veteran Families Survey conducted by YouGov, which spoke with nearly 600 family members of current and former ADF personnel, tells a different story. More than half (52%) of Australian defence and veteran families experienced mental health challenges. Anxiety. Depression. PTSD. They are twice as likely to face these challenges as the average Australian. Yet only 36% believe Australia’s mental health services service their unique needs. 

Almost half also reported difficulties accessing basic healthcare. GPs. Specialists. Hospitals. Not specialist trauma care — basic healthcare. Furthermore, a third of those with a person with disability in their household couldn’t access the services they needed. 

And Veteran families aren’t just sacrificing their health; they’re sacrificing their livelihood as well. Our survey showed they experience unemployment at more than three times the rate of the general population. Three times. Unsurprisingly, more than half are worried about their finances, which no doubt is being exacerbated by the current impact of the fuel crisis on our economy. 

These are not edge cases. These are the families of the people we are now asking to crew our submarines, operate our drones, and staff the force that will supposedly deter conflict across the Indo-Pacific. 

A self-reliant Australia must support defence and veteran families 

The 2026 National Defence Strategy speaks of self-reliance. Of denial. Of deterrence. But there is nothing self-reliant about a force whose families are quietly breaking under the weight of service. There is no deterrence without retention. And there is no retention without genuinely supporting the people who sit at home through deployments, pack up their lives for the fourth posting in six years, and watch their own careers slowly disappear. 

The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide was explicit: families are central to the veteran system and are under-supported. That was not a suggestion. It was a finding. 

We have the evidence. We have the data. We have the voices telling the government exactly what they need. What we do not yet have is veteran and defence families being recognised as the defence capability priority that they should be — not a welfare afterthought, but a core pillar of current and future capability. 

The Families of Veterans Guild is calling, again, for a Ministerial Advisory Body dedicated to the needs of veteran and defence families. We are calling for the Veteran White Card for mental health to be extended to immediate family members. We are calling for family support to be named — explicitly, funded, and measured — in the next iteration of this strategy. 

The Strategy and Integrated Investment Program contain a very serious $425 billion commitment to keeping Australia safe. We do not dispute the need. But you cannot build a force of that scale and ambition while continuing to treat its families as an afterthought or feel-good statement.  

The families of our veterans and serving members enable defence. They champion it. They dedicate their lives to it. It is time the defence and its strategy said so — and tangibly proved its commitment. 

By Renee Wilson, CEO, Families of Veterans Guild 

This blog post first appeared in The Canberra Times’ opinion column on 2 March. Read it on the Canberra Times’ website.

Global tensions are escalating and Australia is ramping up its defence spending to record levels, the associated rhetoric from the Albanese Government is clear: people are our most important asset. And on paper, the commitment to the entire defence community appears to be there. Just last week, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs announced a $739.2 million investment to improve veteran and veteran family wellbeing through proactive treatment and rehabilitation: “The Albanese Government is prioritising the health and wellbeing of our veteran community, with a commitment to providing more effective and efficient support to veterans and families of veterans.”  

Rhetoric vs. reality 

My initial thought when this news broke was, finally! Finally veteran families, whose support and engagement within the veteran system has been limited – and largely unchanged since the end of WWII – have some real support to look forward to.  

I read on and the excitement disappeared. Despite the inclusive headline statement, there is no new wellbeing support, services or funding in this package for veteran families. The funding will provide, “…provision of the treatment and rehabilitation for veterans to reduce the impact of injury on them and improve their lifetime wellbeing…” and “…support for medical practitioners.”  

This is great news for veterans, and after working on veteran policy for many years in the DVA, I am pleased to see new and emerging treatments being embraced. However, as the CEO of an organisation representing veteran families in Australia, and a veteran spouse myself, I’m devastated. Once again, veteran families are seen just as extensions of the veteran in policy, rather than real people whose health, wellbeing and livelihood is heavily impacted as they support their loved ones who serves. They are expected to absorb career setbacks, ill mental health, children heavily affected by the instability and trauma of military life, and costly access to treatment, all while being a lifeline for their veteran.  

1950s policy for families in 2026 

So, why are veteran families invisible to the system? Unfortunately, the reality is our veteran support system is an archaic framework built on traditional patriarchal style values, meaning it’s built and run largely by male veterans with limited diversity in its establishment or design, as a result it views the system through a narrow, veteran-first policy lens.  

War widows were first enshrined in policy in the 1950s, but only as ‘dependent caregivers’. Benefits were strictly tied to a widow’s age or her status as a mother, cementing the idea that a partner’s only value was her service to the veteran and his children. When the Veterans’ Entitlements Act was passed in 1986, it was a golden opportunity for reform. Instead, it froze the family support model in time. While veterans’ clinical needs were updated, this legislation largely preserved the old repatriation mindset: families only exist in the eyes of the government if the veteran is either 100% incapacitated or deceased. Even the new Veterans’ Entitlements, Treatment and Support (VETS) Act, which comes into effect in 2026, fails to break this cycle. While it aims to simplify a complex system, it effectively perpetuates the status quo for families.  

There has been no substantive policy update for veteran families since 1986. It’s 2026. For the 700,000+ veteran families living today, the system is operating on a seventy-year-old assumption that families benefit from veteran entitlements, a very passive approach to policy design and one that results in thousands being left behind and disadvantaged because their loved one serves Australia.  

The system hasn’t kept pace with the changing impacts of war, military service and public policy changes. It hasn’t kept pace with changing needs, demographics and around four generations of families. The result? If you are the family member of a living veteran, your support pathways in the Australian system are limited, and your experiences largely unseen.    

The unseen cost of service on families 

Our 2025 Veteran Families Survey revealed that veteran families have significant, independent wellbeing needs that cannot be met simply by treating the veteran. Veteran family members are twice as likely as the general public to face mental health challenges, and three times more likely to experience under- and un-employment. Despite these findings, the government is yet to respond or offer a plan to support these needs and offset the costs, and sacrifices, of defending Australia borne by families.  

The 2021 Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide was also explicit in its findings: families are central to the veteran system and are under supported. Lieutenant General Natasha Fox, Chief of Personnel, acknowledged that families enable military service, “…you recruit the soldier, but you retain the family”, yet it is not reflected in how we spend our money, or how we care for our veteran communities.  

You can see why my hopes were high when I started to read that media release: maybe it was time, maybe after all these years families would finally be seen. They weren’t.  

Talk to any veteran and they will tell you how much they rely on their family. They are acutely aware of the sacrifices their families have made for them. They want their families supported, not as a byproduct of their own treatment, but as a priority in their own right.  That’s why we’ve been advocating for change and building services in response to these unmet needs for the last 5 years.  

We want to take our support further; we want families to know they have a place, and a voice in the veteran system. We want them to know there is an organisation standing up for them. In this way we can help the Government put some meaning behind their headline, “…more effective and efficient support to veterans and families of veterans.” We can help Australia take care of families, and in doing so support the whole family unit, not just part of it.  

It’s time to invest in veteran families  

The Families of Veterans Guild has put forward a pre-Budget submission for $5.17 million over four years to support families. In the context of a $739 million announcement for medical practitioners, our ask is small. For $1.29 million a year, we can provide specialist social work, career upskilling, and crisis support for over 5,000 family members annually. That is just $223 per family member to keep the unit from reaching a breaking point. By empowering community-led organisations rather than expanding government bureaucracy, we can deliver impact at the speed families actually need. 

It is time to put some meaning behind the headlines. It’s time we saw and supported the wellbeing needs of the families of veterans, not as a bi-product of improving support and treatment pathways to veterans, but open the pathways to them as well. Because defending Australia has real impacts, beyond the veteran.  

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