The Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia Story
In the beginning......
M
uch has been written about the Vietnam veteran movement, and why we felt the need to band
together when other agencies already existed. Our own National Researcher, Graham Walker AM,
published a historical account in in our newsletters between March 1994 and September 1996, and this research
was referred to by Ambrose Crowe in writing his book The Battle After The War – The story of Australia's
Vietnam Veterans, published by Allen & Unwin in 1999. Graham also contributed a chapter titled, ‘The
Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia’ in the book , War: Australia and Vietnam published by Harper and
Rowin 1987. Graham Walker’s latest contribution to the understanding of the Vietnam veteran movement is his
chapter titled ‘The Official History’s Agent Orange Account: The Veterans’ Perspective’ in the book, War
Wounds, Medicine and the Trauma of Conflict published by Exisle in 2011. Much of the story below comes
from these sources.
The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia (VVAA), as we were then known, was established because of
the lack of support for Vietnam veterans by those organisations already in place to help war veterans. It began
when a handful of veterans saw reports in the press about the effects of herbicides on farmers and their unborn
and recently born offspring. The Australian veterans noticed themselves and their families having the same
symptoms. This was reinforced by strong press and TV coverage on evidence coming out of the United States,
of ill effects on their veterans of exposure to herbicide agents which were given the names, Agent
Orange, Agent Blue etc., referring to a coloured band round their containers. Agent Orange was the best known
both because it was most used and because it contained an impurity, Dioxin, a deadly poison. The term "Agent
Orange" became a household name.
Momentum over the possible effects of exposure to Agent Orange increased, as more and more veterans came
forward in Australia. In mid 1979 a major inquiry about the effects of herbicides on the wives of farmers was
reported in Sydney and Melbourne newspapers. Thus, with their own symptoms matching those mentioned in
the reports as well as those effects reported by American Vietnam Servicemen, Australian Vietnam Veterans
began to discuss their problems more openly. Numbers began to grow, as more and more veterans felt
compelled to add their own stories into the argument.
During November and December 1979 meetings between veterans began to take place in Victoria, Sydney and
Brisbane. In January 1980 organised meetings between Australian Vietnam Veterans took place in Sydney,
Brisbane and Perth. By the end of January 1980, at a meeting held at ANZAC House in Melbourne it was
decided that the veterans should link up nationally and the name Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia
(VVAA) was adopted. (Later, in 1995, this organisation split into the Vietnam Veterans Federation with the
remainder retaining the name, Vietnam Veterans Association).
The battle at home.....
T
he VVAA National Council began to pressure the government of 1980 for an inquiry into the effects of
Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans and their families. Each State Sub-Branch began its own lobbying of
Federal and State ministers as well. The Federal Liberal Government of the day pleaded ignorance of any
spraying of Agent Orange in the Australian area of operations when the Member for Melbourne Ports, Clyde
Holding asked questions in Parliament. But the media was very active, especially with increasing evidence from
overseas. More and more the VVAA ran into resistance from the government and the RSL. Even the department
set up to assist veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs, (DVA), refused to accept claims based on the
effects of herbicides, despite Repatriation law requiring war veterans be given the benefit of any doubt. We
thought this was a case of the Department flouting the law.
At a meeting of ex-service organisations held at RSL headquarters in Canberra, the VVAA argued for a Royal
Commission. Support was unanimous except for the RSL. Even the first report commissioned by the
government seemed more concerned with defending the use of Agent Orange and other chemicals in Australian
agriculture than finding the truth for Vietnam veterans. Meanwhile our State and National heads of the VVAA
continued to campaign hard for what seemed the only way forward; a Royal Commission into the effects of
Agent Orange on our diggers and their families. With an election looming in 1983 the Federal Labor Opposition
promised VVAA National Council that if elected, it would introduce a Royal Commission as a matter of
priority. Within 5 days of being elected, the announcement was made. The government produced initial terms of
reference that did not satisfy the VVAA. The RSL national body, promptly declared it was the only body
sufficiently capable of handling veterans matters when lobbying government and introduced its own terms of
reference. The VVAA National Council, now with its own researcher and lawyers, presented its terms of
reference to senior ministers and the Prime Minister. It was the VVAA's terms of reference, in the main, that the
government agreed to. So far, so good. One small victory.....
The Royal Commission sat for two years. Much to the campaigning veterans satisfaction, it found that a
repatriation determining authority might well attribute a Vietnam veteran’s soft tissue sarcoma or non-Hodgkins
lymphoma (both cancers) to his exposure to Agent Orange while on war service in Vietnam. Confusingly for
some, the ‘Conclusions and Recommendations’ section of the enquiry’s report failed to mention the link with
soft tissue sarcoma and lymphoma. Indeed in its summing-up, the report proclaimed: ‘There is no reliable
evidence that the chemicals in Agent Orange cause cancer in humans.’ In general, it declared ‘Agent Orange
Not Guilty’.
Clearly the ‘Not Guilty’ findings were made at a higher standard of proof than that demanded in repatriation
legislation which required veterans be given the benefit of the doubt.. Those conclusions were, therefore,
irrelevant to the veterans’ case. Nevertheless, the Department ignored the findings on Hodgkins Lymphoma and
soft tissue sarcoma and recognised only on the ‘Not Guilty’ conclusions.
The Royal Commission also found that this flouting of the law by the Department had been going on for some
time. It noted that the Repatriation Commission had ‘for a number of years, refused to concede that benevolent
judicial interpretations of the application of … [the law] were consistent with parliamentary intention’ .And, its
report said, the Department was guilty of ‘finding a method whereby the Repatriation Commission may restrict
benefits which have flowed from a generous – though proper – interpretation of the legislation’. The Evatt
enquiry went so far as to accuse the Repatriation Commission of training Determining Officers ‘to find ways
around Court statements of what the law was’ and of emphasising ‘ways in which a claim could be “knockedout”’. Despite these findings the Department focused only on the irrelevant ‘Not Guilty’ finding and continued
to reject veterans compensation claims.
Thus another battle with governments and the DVA began. It took almost 7 long years of battling with DVA
through appeals to the Veterans Review Board (VRB)and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), to
overcome their unlawful resistance. In 1992, the US Academy of Science published what was to be a two yearly
summary of all the evidence available on the harmfulness of Agent Orange. At a high standard of proof it
pointed to the link with a list of cancers. Soon after that the DVA at last admitted defeat and began accepting
that a long list of cancers were linked with exposure. The list has grown with each report of the US Academy.
And what of the children…
C
oncern about birth defects in the children of veterans who had been exposed to Agent Orange was even
more troubling than the effects on veterans themselves.
In its 1996 report, the US National Academy of Science identified a link between exposure of veteran fathers to
Agent Orange and their children suffering the birth defect spina bifida. As a result, the US government accepted
responsibility and generously compensated the affected children.
In 1997an Australian government study found an increase in the incidence of spina bifida manifesta, cleft lip,
cleft palate, adrenal gland cancer and acute myeloid leukemia in the children of Vietnam veterans. The study
was not specifically designed to find a link between the children’s ill health and Agent Orange but it did
establish a firm relationship with ‘service in Vietnam’. Agent Orange remains the most likely cause. The
government introduced measures to help the victims.
The US Academy’s 2008 update strengthened the possibility of a link with birth defects. It stated that the
developing understanding of the trans-generational effects of Agent Orange was making the link between
fathers’ exposure and their children’s ill-health more plausible, and recommended increasing the level of
epidemiological research.
On other fronts.....
T
he Vietnam veteran movement was not only campaigning on the issue of Agent Orange. Having set up its
own counselling service at its Parramatta office with qualified volunteer counsellors, it lobbied hard for
government participation. This was the genesis of the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service (VVCS). It
flourished and grew and was renamed the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service. From its
inception we have had to fight off Departmental attempts to completely consume this supposedly independent
service. Its independence is essential.
The VVAA was also involved in important court cases. The Vietnam Veterans Federation .Branches and SubBranches round Australia help veterans of all wars apply for compensation and appeal unfair rejections.
But that’s just the start of it.
Our NSW State Branch, for instance, seeks out isolated veterans in country towns by sending pension officers
on country tours. One particularly successful outreach tour helped 92 veterans in Tasmania to complete
compensation claims. Another to Darwin base camps recently (2025) saw 138 claims processed.
Branches and Sub-Branches offer a range of services including club houses, wood and metal workshops, radio
programmes, education courses, choirs and many other social activities. More hidden are our continual efforts
to combat threats to veterans’ welfare. This is not an easy fight as just as one obstacle is overcome another
appears. We are continually fighting against the parsimony of Treasury and ignorance of some politicians and
bureaucrats. It is a fight with no end.
The birth of the Federation....
F
or several years between 1981 and 1989 there was an ill wind between the NSW Branch, the Victorian
Branch and the National Executive of the VVAA. This was to come to a head when, after several attempts
of mediation, the VVAA National Council refused to respond to questions put to a National Meeting, by the
NSW President. Several more attempts were made, but without a proper response from the VVAA National
Executive to some vital questions, the NSW Branch had to consider its position. With NSW having around half
of the association’s membership, it being the source of most of the associations documented arguments and with
its interests and objectives being ignored, there seemed no choice.
In February 1995 at a general meeting, the NSW Branch chose to disassociate itself from the National Council
of the VVAA. At a further meeting in July of 1995 interstate organisations also agreed to join with NSW and
form a new national body calling itself the Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia, (VVFA). South Australia,
the ACT and Queensland, along with NSW became the founding member States. Since then, the Vietnam
Veterans Federation of Australia has gone from strength to strength now having six State Branches, including
the ACT, representation in all States and some 26 sub-branches. We are an organization strong enough to
confront government when it fails in is duty to veterans and to challenge the bureaucracy when it lets down
those it is its purpose to help.