Unacknowledged Casualties — For Families
If This Is
Your Story
For partners, former partners, and children of ADF veterans who served in East Timor or Bougainville — and who may recognise something of their own experience in what this site describes.
If you are in immediate danger, call 000. Lifeline 13 11 14 | 1800RESPECT 1800 737 732 | Open Arms 1800 011 046 — all available 24 hours
This page does not offer medical or legal advice. What it offers is an acknowledgement — without qualification — that what happened to you has a documented context, that you are not alone in it, and that it was not your fault.
If the person you loved came back from deployment changed — in ways that frightened you, confused you, and that no one around you could explain — you did not imagine it.
The personality changes, the rage, the paranoia, the person who seemed to disappear behind someone else's eyes: these are documented effects of drugs administered to ADF personnel during the East Timor and Bougainville deployments. They are listed in regulatory literature. They are described in peer-reviewed forensic psychiatric research. They have happened to other families.
You were not told this at the time. No one warned you. No institution monitored what happened in your household as a result. No system was built to help you when it did. That is an institutional failure. It is not your failure. And it is not your partner's character.
If You Are a Partner or Former Partner
The pages on this site most directly relevant to your experience are listed below. Each addresses a different dimension of what happened — from the neurological mechanism, to the behavioural patterns in the home, to the long-term consequences for you, to the systemic failures that left you without support.
You do not need to read them in order. Go to whatever feels most relevant to where you are right now.
It Was Not His Personality. It Was His Brain.
Explains why the changes you witnessed were neurological, not character-driven — and why the word "narcissism," however understandable, was the wrong explanation for what was actually happening.
Coercive Control in the Home
Describes the specific patterns — rage, paranoia, surveillance, emotional withdrawal — and explains the neurological mechanism behind each one. For partners who have struggled to name what happened to them.
Just the Army Wife
Written about the structural position of the military spouse — and what "just the army wife" meant for recognition, entitlement, and recourse when things went wrong.
Left Behind — Spouses and Children
Documents the long-term consequences for partners: the depression, the C-PTSD, the financial devastation, the isolation, and the loss of children through legal proceedings that did not understand what they were assessing.
She Was Left With Nothing
The most direct page on this site. Written for the women who lost the most — the legal battle, the children, the financial security, and the hope. It names what happened without softening it.
What Must Change
Sets out what this site is calling for — formal recognition, a dedicated support program, legal reform, research, and an apology. What should have existed all along.
If You Are a Child or Adult Child of an Affected Veteran
If you grew up in a household shaped by a parent's quinoline-related neurological injury, the page The Children is written about your experience.
It describes what children in these households were exposed to, what the research on childhood adversity shows about those experiences, and why you were never given an explanation for what was happening in your home. It includes a direct address to adult children reading this site — people who are now looking back at a childhood that was confusing or frightening and that they have perhaps never been able to fully make sense of.
What happened in your household had a cause. That cause was not your parent's character. It was not yours. And you deserved to know this long before now.
If you need support, Kids Helpline (1800 55 1800) is available for young people aged 5 to 25, free and confidential, 24 hours. For adults, Lifeline (13 11 14), Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636), and Open Arms (1800 011 046) are available 24 hours.
You were not the reason. The difficulty in that household was not a reflection of your worth. The behaviour that frightened you or made you feel invisible was about an injury your parent sustained from drugs administered by the Australian government — not about who you are or what you deserved.
This was not your fault.
Living with someone whose brain has been neurologically altered by a drug is not the same as living with an abusive partner or parent in the ordinary sense of that phrase — though the harm may have been equally serious, and sometimes more so.
The person who frightened you, hurt you, or controlled you may also have been a person who loved you, who was distressed by their own behaviour, and who had no more understanding than you did of what was happening to them. Both things can be true simultaneously.
None of this means the harm you experienced was acceptable. None of this means you should have stayed, or that leaving was a betrayal. It means the origin of the harm was institutional — and the institutions responsible have not yet been held accountable for it.
You were not the cause. You were the consequence. And the difference between those two things matters enormously.
If You Are Currently Unsafe
If you are in an unsafe situation right now, or if reading this site has brought up distressing experiences, support is available. You do not need to explain the drug trial or the neurotoxicity context to access help — you can simply describe what is happening and ask for support.
If you are in immediate danger, call 000. Do not wait. Your safety comes before anything else on this page.
These services are available to you. You do not need to explain the quinoline context. You do not need a DVA card. You can simply call and describe what is happening.
1800RESPECT
National sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling. 24 hours, 7 days. Online chat also available. — 1800 737 732
Open Arms — Veterans and Families Counselling
Free counselling for current and former ADF members and their families. No DVA card required. 24 hours. — 1800 011 046
Lifeline Australia
24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention. Available every day of the year. — 13 11 14
Beyond Blue
Mental health support and information. Available 24 hours. — 1300 22 4636
Safe Steps (Victoria)
Family violence response centre. 24-hour support. — 1800 015 188
DV Connect (Queensland)
Domestic violence helpline. Available 24 hours. — 1800 811 811
Kids Helpline
Free, confidential counselling for children and young people aged 5 to 25. Available 24 hours. — 1800 55 1800
Safe Zone Support
Anonymous counselling for veterans and families. — 1800 142 072
Suicide Call Back Service
24/7 phone and online counselling. — 1300 659 467
Defence and Veterans Legal Service (DAVLS)
Free legal support for veterans and families, including family law matters. — 1800 33 1800
Staff at these services are trained to help. You do not need to explain the history of the drug trials. You can simply describe what is happening, or what has happened, and ask for help.
What Does Not Yet Exist — and What This Site Is Asking For
There is currently no dedicated government support program for partners, spouses, or children of ADF quinoline veterans. There is no DVA category that recognises your harm. There is no legal framework that names what happened to you. What does currently exist is listed below — along with what this site is calling for.
What Currently Exists
Open Arms (1800 011 046) provides free counselling for family members of veterans — you do not need a DVA card. Legal Aid in your state or territory may be able to assist with family court matters. The Defence and Veterans Legal Service (1800 33 1800) provides free legal support. DVA's Acute Support Package provides some emergency financial assistance for veteran families in crisis.
What This Site Is Calling For
Formal government recognition of partners and children as secondary casualties. A dedicated, independently administered support program covering psychological care, financial support, legal representation, and child-focused services. Legislative amendment to create a DVA pathway for family members of clinical trial subjects. Independent research. A public apology. These are the demands on the What Must Change page.
The absence of support is not a reflection of your worth. It is one of the central failures this site documents — and one of the changes it demands. You are not the first person to have lived through this, and this site exists in part because what happened to your family deserves to be on the public record.
The research report on which this site is based was prepared in part because the partners and families of affected veterans have been invisible to every institution that should have seen them.
If your experience is reflected here — in part, in full, or in ways you have never been able to name before — this site asks you to know: what happened to you is documented, it matters, and it has not been forgotten.
The full research report is available to download if you wish to read the complete evidence — the science, the regulatory record, the documented cases, and the recommendations.
You have been carrying this long enough. You were never supposed to carry it alone.
Unacknowledged Casualties — Research Report 2026