Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I stand here in the chamber today and acknowledge the presence of some veterans of the Korean conflict and, through this motion, raise public issues with respect to the proper recognition of their service for our country. As previous speakers have done, I stand here proud of the performance of the Australian Defence Force in a range of conflicts and proud of the work that these men and their colleagues did in Korea so many years ago. Unlike one of the speakers so far, I do have real concerns about what has happened to the proper recognition of that service.

The member for Barton went through a number of issues with respect to what has occurred, so I will just go through a series of points which I think are relevant to the situation, to some extent working through his contribution. The first point is: let there be no doubt that this was a real conflict. It was a particularly tough war. The conditions in Korea were quite appalling, and they did not change on the day the armistice was put into effect. The fact is that those who stayed behind to enforce the peace were in a situation which was not that peaceful at all. Eighteen Australians died during that period, and that needs to be recognised.

Over the last 50 years, the people involved have been looking to get proper recognition of what actually occurred. This led to the establishment of an independent review. The independent review aspect is very important. The previous speaker, the member for Maranoa, who is of course a former Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, talked about the fact that, when medals were being considered during the time of the previous Labor government—in fact, in my first term in this place—there was an independent review. That review came down with a series of recommendations, and the recommendations that the member for Maranoa went through were actually accepted by the government of the day.

Aspects of that process have been revisited, and there has been another independent review, but what has happened? The government have rejected that review and rejected the recommendations of the review. There were, I think, some six recommendations from this particular independent review, of which four were rejected and two were accepted. But one of the recommendations that was accepted just said, ‘We agree with the recommendation that there should be more publicity, more education and more understanding about issues in this area,’ but then went on to say, ‘It is already done.’ The other recommendation that was agreed to was a recommendation from the independent review not to do something. Every single recommendation of the review that actually had something substantive in it was rejected by the government.

This is not a new experience for this government when it comes to veterans’ affairs and defence; it is regular occurrence. In fact, it is what they do when they have a problem. They set up an independent review and they allow that review to consult. They allow that review to go around the country to talk to people, to understand issues, to develop expertise and to come down with recommendations. Then what does the government do? Overwhelmingly and invariably, they reject the recommendations. The starkest example of that that we have seen in veterans’ affairs was with the Clarke review. And we are now seeing it with this review.

This review had two co-chairs. One was Rear Admiral Ian Crawford, a man I personally hold in high regard. He is a Korean veteran and deeply understands the nature of these sorts of issues. He is not someone that they pulled off the street. The second co-chair was a former member of this place, Garry Nehl, former member for Cowper and former occupant of the position of Deputy Speaker—a man whom I disagreed with on many occasions on many issues in this chamber, but a man whom I respect. I can recall when representatives of the Korean veterans came to see me to raise some concerns about whether this was going to be a genuine review. They were concerned about what the government might be up to. I said to them, ‘I think you’ll find that this is a man who will call it as he sees it and you ought to give him the chance to deliver some findings.’ As part of the review, he delivered some findings—and what happened? The government rejected the recommendations.

The government have not properly acknowledged the circumstances of these gentlemen and what they went through. The government have gone through a process and have improperly dealt with the results of that process. These veterans are being disregarded, improperly, as a result of the government ignoring an independent review. If you are going to have independent reviews to consider issues which are technical and controversial and which require additional consideration, you have to go down that track and deal with the results. They have not; they have ignored them. It is appalling. (Time expired)

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