Peter Tinley has worn many uniforms in his life.

The camouflage of a young soldier. The sandy-coloured operational dress of the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS). The suit and tie of a parliamentarian.

Today, the uniform is less obvious, but the service remains.

As National President of the Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL), Tinley once again finds himself serving others. “It does nothing for the mortgage, but does everything for the heart and soul,” he says with a laugh. Tinley has stepped into the role at a pivotal time for Australia’s veteran community.

The establishment of the Veteran and Family Wellbeing Agency in July, one of the key reforms arising from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, has renewed focus on veteran support and transition services.

At 64, Tinley has spent more than four decades serving in different ways. Looking back, he sees the connection through every chapter of his life. “I didn’t know I had been moving there my entire life,” he says. “But what was consistent was this theme of public service.”

Tinley’s public image is easy to sketch. Former SAS commander, cabinet minister and now head of Australia’s largest veterans’ organisation. The beginning was far less certain.

Long before the honours, portfolios and national leadership roles, Tinley was a teenager struggling to find his calling. Growing up in the suburbs of Perth in the 1970s, he remembers a landscape that felt small and limiting. “It was a pretty boring place for a kid,” he says, describing it as “an urban wasteland”.

To Tinley, the education system felt restrictive and directionless. By 15, he had dropped out of school, drifted between odd jobs and occasionally found himself in trouble, including an appearance before the Children’s Court in Fremantle. His future could easily have followed a different path.

Then came a conversation he still remembers more than 40 years later. He used to box and play basketball at the local Police and Community Youth Club. One day a police sergeant pulled him aside. “You can’t keep out of trouble, son,” the officer told him. “I think you’re just bored.”

The sergeant then suggested something that seemed almost unimaginable at the time. Why not join the Army? For a teenager searching for purpose, the suggestion stuck. Tinley walked into a recruiting office soon afterwards. The posters on the walls promised adventure, travel and challenge.

“That was it,” he says. “I signed up as fast as I could.”

What began as a search for adventure became his place of belonging. For the first time, Tinley found direction. More importantly, he found purpose. The Army gave structure to a young man who had spent years looking for it, while the SAS offered the next challenge.

The SAS represented everything that appealed to Tinley: challenge, responsibility and belonging. Selection was notoriously difficult, testing a soldier’s physical endurance, mental resilience and ability to perform under pressure. Widely regarded as Australia’s elite special forces unit, it would become the place where he spent much of his military career.

After several years serving as a soldier in the regiment, Tinley attended the Royal Military College Duntroon in Canberra. He successfully graduated before returning to the SAS as an officer. He would go on to spend 25 years in the Army, 17 of those with the SAS.

Yet when he reflects on those years, it is not the titles or achievements he talks about first. It was those he served alongside.

Many of those friendships remain among the strongest of his life. Peter Boyd is one of them. His longtime SAS colleague says he stood out almost immediately when he met him around 1981. “He was just a born leader,” Boyd says.

Rather than relying on rank or intimidation, Boyd remembers a leader who focused on solving problems and earning respect.“Pete was very good at just, ‘Right, we need to get this job done. How are we going to get it done?’” he says.

For a teenager who once struggled to find where he belonged, the SAS became more than a military unit. It became a community. Even now, Tinley says the SAS still holds a special place in his heart.

By the mid-1990s, Tinley had built a career that had taken him from suburban Perth to SAS deployments across South-East Asia, Lebanon, Israel and Syria. But the relationships that gave military life meaning also brought its greatest heartbreak.

One of the hardest days of Tinley’s career came on June 12, 1996, when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed during a training exercise near Townsville, described by ABC News as Australia’s worst peacetime military aviation disaster.

Eighteen Australian Defence Force personnel died. Many were friends. Long after the initial shock faded, the phone calls stayed with him. “You know, talking to the women that instantly became widows, it is a very difficult experience,” Tinley says.

Death and injury, he says, are never far away in military service. “It is an inherently dangerous place. A deadly place. There’s no glory in it.”

The realities of war left Tinley with a perspective that differs sharply from the popular heroism of military service. “I’ve never met a bigger pacifist than soldiers,” he says. “Anybody who’s been in those combat situations, they don’t wish it upon anyone.”

When lives are on the line, soldiers are not fighting for political ideals. “You fight for your mates. You fight for the guy left and right of you,” he says.

The losses reinforced a lesson that would shape every chapter that followed. “You don’t get value out of things,” he says. “You get value out of personal relationships.”

By the early 2000s, Tinley was helping plan operations associated with the Iraq War. As Australia prepared to join the United States-led invasion, he found himself increasingly uncomfortable with the justification for the conflict.

Looking back, he describes it as a defining moment. “That sealed the idea that I could no longer serve,” he says. “That effectively got me into politics.”

The uniform was changing. The desire to serve was not.

For Tinley, the Australian Labor Party offered a new way to continue serving the community. Following the resignation of former premier Alan Carpenter, Tinley was elected as the Member for Willagee in a 2009 by-election, representing the electorate for the next 15 years.

“The day I walked into Parliament, it struck me that this was public service in a different uniform with different people,” Tinley says.

Politics, like military service, ultimately came down to people. Tinley recalls an elderly woman arriving at his electorate office distressed by a Water Corporation bill of more than $1000. After investigation, Tinley and his team discovered an error and significantly reduced the amount.

“You should have seen the look on this woman’s face,” he says. He smiles at the memory. For Tinley, the moment was a reminder of why public service mattered. “In that moment, I realised that’s who I’m here to help.”

Kim Giddens, local Labor member for Bateman and longtime family friend, says that this instinct has always defined him.

“Peter is one of those people whose life has genuinely been defined by service,” she says. “Beneath the impressive CV is a deeply decent and compassionate person.”

After 15 years in Parliament, Tinley chose not to contest the 2025 State Election. It could have marked the end of a life spent in public service. Instead, it became the beginning of another chapter.

Soon afterwards, he was approached about leading RSL Australia. Veteran advocacy was already a significant part of Tinley’s life before he left politics.

Through his parliamentary work and involvement with veteran support initiatives, he remained closely connected to the community he had served alongside for decades.

Today, alongside his role within the RSL, he remains involved in these initiatives and serves on the board of the Australian War Memorial.

Duncan Anderson, State President of RSL WA and Deputy National President of RSL Australia, was among those who encouraged Tinley to pursue the national presidency. “We didn’t just need a veteran to lay a wreath,” Anderson says. “We needed a veteran who could also pursue advocacy and influence in Canberra.”

Anderson says those qualities, combined with Tinley’s ability to connect with people, make him a dynamic and approachable leader. “Peter is an authentic knockabout larrikin,” Anderson says.

Many veterans retain a desire to serve after leaving the Defence Force but Anderson believes Tinley has taken that commitment into every stage of his life. “Some people act on it in a small way and other people act on it in a big way,” he says. “And that’s what Peter’s doing.”

Throughout his military career, political life and ongoing advocacy work, family has remained a constant. Boyd credits much of that stability to Tinley’s wife, Vicki, who also served in the Defence Force and understood the demands that came with military and public service. “He’s very lucky to have such a great supporting partner,” Boyd says.

When asked what he is most proud of, Tinley does not mention military honours, election victories or leadership positions. Instead, he smiles. “My kids. A father’s wish is always that his children are better than him. My four kids achieved that by Year 10,” he says.

For Boyd, Tinley’s legacy is simple. “He’s spent his life trying to help others. That’s what he’ll be remembered for.”

Soldier. Politician. Advocate.The way he served changed. The desire to serve never did.

“The uniform may come off,” Tinley says, “but the service doesn’t.”