The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were in Australia one month ago. Prince Harry did at least two events with Invictus Australia, including announcing a new Invictus program specifically for Australia. Harry and Meghan also took part in an Invictus event in Sydney, and they met several Team Oz competitors. All of that is in addition to Harry traveling to Canberra to visit the Australian War Memorial, placing a poppy on the Wall of Remembrance’s Afghanistan section, laying a wreath at the memorial, viewing the Last Post Ceremony and meeting with an all-female honor guard. Harry was extremely veterans-forward during the Oz trip. One month later, the Australian government gutted funding for Invictus Australia, in addition to gutting the funding of veterans programs across the board.
One of the Invictus Games charities backed by Prince Harry fears for its future after the Australian government cut all its funding. Invictus Australia, whose members the Duke and Duchess of Sussex met on their trip to the country last month, will not have its £4.83million three-year support renewed. The decision by Australia’s Labour government, in new budget announced on Tuesday, took charity leaders by surprise.
It comes after it was announced this week a key trustee of Harry’s Invictus Games next year in Birmingham was separately stepping down.
The withdrawal of Australian funding follows Harry and Meghan’s visit to the country last month, meeting members of Invictus Australia and announcing a new sports festival due to be held in Perth later this year. He and Meghan took part in a sailing tour after his visit to the Australian War Memorial, with a reception for Invictus Australia and the Last Post Ceremony.
Invictus Australia is a veterans’ charity that connects current and former serving personnel and their families to sporting communities across the country. Its officials say they were taken aback by the decision not to renew their funding, announced in Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ new federal budget on Tuesday. And officials have warned there could now be struggles to send an Australian team to the next Games scheduled for next year at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre. The Australian government previously promised AUS$9million (£4.83million) across three years for the charity in the 2022-2023 budget.
Invictus Australia’s chief executive Michael Hartung revealed he only learnt of the funding withdrawal hours before the budget was tabled in parliament. He told ABC Sport: ‘We really only found out yesterday evening and that has left us with a fair degree of shock. Removing this funding removes access to a proven pathway for recovery.’
He described how three quarters of the organisation’s funding came from the federal government, adding in a statement on the charity’s website: ‘For many veterans, Invictus Australia is not a recreational outlet. It is a lifeline. With demand already outstripping our capacity, this decision risks pushing vulnerable veterans and their families further into isolation. If we are truly committed to veteran wellbeing, support for this work must continue so we can keep delivering evidence backed impact at scale.’
The charity typically backs a team of about 50 athletes taking part in the Invictus Games but says it has also ‘supported close to 30,000 veterans and family members through sporting programs delivered across the country’.
Invictus Games athlete Vanessa Broghill, who won long jump gold for Australia at the 2020 event, said of the latest setback: ‘It can be life-threatening if I’m going to be brutally honest. We lose six veterans a month to suicide and a lot of the time that can be taken back to the fact that they feel like they have no support. There are so many people out there that rely on organisations like Invictus Australia to help them through all the things that they’re going through, whether it be PTSD, anxiety, depression.’
Apparently, this latest Australian budget also cut funding to the Salvation Army, Soldier On and many mental health groups which work with veterans with PTSD. The moves are anti-veteran across the board. Still, there’s a reason why Invictus is front-and-center in so much of the coverage, just as there’s a reason why there’s so much negative energy being directed at the Birmingham games. The throughline is sabotage, the throughline is “dismantle one of Prince Harry’s biggest legacies by any means necessary.” Do I think that’s solely what this Australian mess is about? No, but it’s unquestionably a factor. Specifically, the Sussexes’ wildly successful Oz trip had a lot of people all the way f–ked up.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
