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

I thank the member for Banks for his question and I acknowledge his long-standing interest in the concerns of veterans within his electorate. Service delivery for our veterans community is a very important aspect of what any government has to do. A key aspect of that is the issue of processing their claims in a timely manner, ensuring that they get the support that they are entitled to when they are entitled to it, and ensuring that it is all done above board in a careful, caring and considerate manner. These were concerns which were raised with us in opposition. Under the previous government the circumstances were that in a number of areas there were blowouts in the times taken for the consideration of claims across a number of different areas. Upon entering government we took action. We set up an interdepartmental working group which has worked to deal with the issues between departments, particularly improving information sharing between departments. Also, we reduced the number of medical reviews some veterans needed to undertake. There have also been improvements around proof of identity requirements needed in certain circumstances.

We also established a special claims unit in December 2007 and it has worked hard within the department to work through those issues. The result of that has been a 20 per cent across-the-board improvement in the treatment of compensation claims, and a slight improvement for income support claims. In particular, under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, in 2006-07 the average time for a claim to be considered was about 188 days. In 2008-09, it is down to 143 days—an improvement in the region of 25 per cent. For Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act claims, in 2006-07 it was some 234 days. Now, in 2008-09, it is down to 151—a 35 per cent reduction. The Veterans’ Entitlement Act is the largest area and historically deals with most of our claims. In 2006-07 the average time was 89 days; in 2008-09 it is down to 69 days—a 20 per cent plus reduction. All of this is good news for those who we care for within the veterans’ community; all of this is an important step towards improving the service provided.

The member for Maranoa recently raised some questions in the House which related to some of these matters, and I will be writing to him in the next few days with respect to those. I can tell him that his constituent only lodged his claim in the last couple of days. What I can also say though is some of the issues that were raised around the question of proof of identity requirements were, I think, going to the issue much further than they should have been in respect of what the real impacts were. The bottom line is the standard approach operates within government, across government and in DVA it has been that way since 2004—that is, under the previous government yet again.

The circumstances are that we have to be careful because we do find instances of fraud, and I mentioned this in my answer recently with respect to this particular question. And I can also inform the House that over the past five years we have had some 20 cases of ID fraud which have been investigated and which, in fact, could have led to a situation of some hundreds of thousands of dollars being defrauded from the Commonwealth. There have been real improvements made here, real steps forward taken to ensure that we look after those who we care for within the veterans’ community, all things which we can be justifiably proud of in government.

See this speech in context