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The Navy hero, John Armfield, served in Australia in Afghanistan and now hopes to serve in Parliament to give voice to the complex mental health challenges that rises to the military.
“There are three reasons why I’m running,” he told Newswire this week.
“One thing I want to achieve, I want to empower veterans to do what I am doing, to make a change, because I am not different from any other veteran. I am a enlisted sailor.
“The second, I want to train Australians to understand, politicians are public servants. They serve them.” We have lost that, we have passed from one service to another. I want Australians to know that their politician serves him, he must demand that they defend him.
“And third, I am still looking for justice in this situation.
“This has given me a platform to call failures in defense leadership. People are listening to me now.”
When Mr. Armfield mentions “this situation”, he refers to a tragedy that saw him become a central figure in the real commission in veteran defense and suicide.
Armfield lost his brother Andrew, a military from the Air Force, for suicide in 2011.
Then he suffered his own mental health struggles 10 years after the traumatic event while dealing with an internal investigation into the death of his brother.
He served as a key witness in the Royal Commission, detailing his own confrontation experiences with the ADF.
In one case, he told the commission how he led to the Post Office to collect a report on the death of his brother without any support to help him process the findings, which, according to him, revealed serious failures in the care of his brother.
“I was sitting in my car, broken,” he said.
“I had faithfully served my nation and that is how I had given me the report on the death of my little brother.
“I sat there and sob. I couldn’t take him home with my family.”
Armfield is running for the Fadden seat of Queensland, which meets in the areas of Northern Gold Coast, with the conservative Gerard Rennick People First Party.
“I would say that we are a part of common sense that focuses on economic policy,” he said.
“Our policies focus on the cost of living mainly, which is what we believe is the main concern in Australia.”
Fadden is a safe coalition seat, currently in the hands of Cameron Caldwell.
Armfield is in the campaign campaign, making events of “Policy in the pub” and gathering and correotones in coffee shops.
He said that a recent event of “meeting the candidates” showed how different it was from the other six candidates.
“Everyone supported the government that prohibits children under 16 who had access to social networks, except me,” he said.
“I don’t want the government to arrive and tell me how to raise my two children, that’s my job as a father.
“So it was really great for the first time I ran in politics to be outside the norm of all other candidates.”
But military problems remain closer to their heart and said it would press for veterans policies if chosen.
The Royal Commission has recommended 122 changes to improve mental health, including a marquee recommendation to establish a separate and independent entity with the responsibility of preventing suicidal deaths between defense and veteran staff.
There is bipartisan support for the Minister of Reform and Defense, Richard Marles, said that the federal government will establish the legislated supervision agency for September 2025.
Armfield criticizes government movement on the subject.
“At this time, 122 recommendations and can’t you implement one? Can’t you make one?” He told Newswire.
He also expressed concern about any deployment of Australian soldiers to Ukraine.
“He (Anthony Albanese) is talking about boots on the ground,” he said.
“We had just lost a 20 -year war. Nobody wants to speak, we lost that war.
“We have not discussed as a nation the lessons learned, how did we lose that war, why were we there first?”
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