Delays in processing ADF veteran compensation claims at the Veterans Affairs Department are capable of lifting the risk of suicide among claimants, a royal commission has been told.
Department officials are appearing in Sydney at a royal commission into the long-running issue of ADF suicide.
When asked on Friday whether delays in processing veterans' claims were capable of increasing the risk of those veterans taking their own lives, DVA deputy secretary Vicki Rundle said: "Yes, I think that's possible."
However, she told the inquiry that suicide was multi-causal and "more complex" than one causal factor.
The inquiry has previously heard of an "unacceptably high" backlog in compensation claims at DVA, with time taken to process some claims doubling in two years to an average of about 200 days.
Ms Rundle said progress on claims had been made on 11 action areas identified by a professor in a report to the department, including more investment in claims teams and extra staff training on working with veterans on claims in a "trauma involved way".
The inquiry heard that when veterans made claims they either went into a priority queue or an unallocated queue, with unallocated claimants sent text messages and contacted, sometimes up to 225 days after making their claims, to "discuss their circumstances" and check in on their mental health.
There had been a "steeply increasing" backlog in veteran claims over 2021, with total claims at a higher number now than they were in August 2021, the inquiry was told.
Key reasons for the backlog were higher demand for claims flowing from the "tempo of operations" in the Middle East and veteran-centred reforms that meant "more traffic" coming to DVA.
The DVA officials' testimony is expected to be followed by closing remarks from counsel assisting Peter Gray QC.
Friday's evidence follows a day of testimony from veterans' families, including Australia's inaugural Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner Gwen Cherne.
Ms Cherne, whose veteran husband took his own life in 2017, told the hearing defence needs to look at "a rehabilitative process" for domestic violence perpetrators, rather than a zero tolerance policy that is not effective.
The commission has also received evidence from veterans pushed out of the defence force for being gay, an ex-soldier who was sexually assaulted, and families of deceased veterans let down by the ADF.
The royal commission was prompted last year when Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would no longer stand in the way of a move to probe the issue of ADF and veteran suicides.
Suicide rates are 24 per cent higher for ex-serving men and double for ex-serving women, compared with the general population, according to federal government data.
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