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Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh held a press conference a short while ago following the release of an interim report on the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicides.

The paper has recommended, among other things, that the Albanese government streamline ADF entitlement laws.

You might recall that while giving evidence to the royal commission a few days ago, Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie described years of “hell” while fighting for workers’ compensation after a back injury.

During his press conference, Keogh apologised to veterans for the way his department has operated in the past.

“To people that have felt they have not got the treatment that they deserve … I apologise for that,” he said.

“It wasn’t under our watch, but as the government of this country, veterans always deserve the best and we should be delivering that.”

Here’s what else the minister told reporters:

The Albanese Labor government welcomes this interim report from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide and we are committed to a better future for our serving personnel, veterans and families.

We now look into implementing these recommendations that have been made. Unfortunately, the rate of veteran suicide in Australia is a national tragedy and it is a rate that is significantly higher than across the general Australian population.

It is devastating that Australia has lost more serving and former serving personnel to suicide than it has lost through operations over the last 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In the interest of transparency, we have chosen to not sit on this report, but rather to release it at the first available opportunity today so that everybody can see what the royal commission says now needs to be done.

We will be reviewing these recommendations closely and provide a formal government response to each of those recommendations as soon as we are able.