Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, let me say how pleased I am to be able to contribute to this debate and to acknowledge the contributions that have been made thus far, by the previous speaker, the member for Brisbane, and by the member of the Canberra whom I have listened to this morning. I think it demonstrates and gives expression to how strong the bipartisanship is over these issues. I am proud to say that, as the former Minister for Defence Science and Personnel and former Minister for Veterans' Affairs, I initiated these proposals during the last government and they were accounted for in the previous budget. I am very pleased that this government has chosen to develop them further and to introduce this legislation into the parliament because we do have an obligation, as has been said by previous speakers, to serving personnel and veterans and their families.

The importance of this legislation is that it acknowledges an ongoing piece of work around how we adequately develop programs and policies to deal with current and emerging issues with defence members and their families and in the transition phase after they have separated from the Defence Force. I have long taken the view—and I think it is acknowledged—that once someone goes through the recruitment gates, goes out to Kapooka and does their recruitment training they are potentially a client of the Department of Veterans' Affairs for the rest of their life. What we have to acknowledge is that once we accept someone into the Defence Force we see them as part of the family that we need to look after, ultimately until they are dead. That means ongoing care not only of them but also, in particular circumstances, their families.

I am happy to say that there has been a great deal of work done between the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Department of Defence around working closer together to make sure that defence personnel understand their current entitlements and also working closer together to make sure that the transition space is filled, that we have got people on the ground on defence bases around this country who are able to inform defence members of their proper and current entitlements whilst they are in uniform and during the transition phase. Much has been done around placing DVA officers on defence facilities around the country and by the various services taking their own initiatives to make sure their personnel are properly informed about what their entitlements are. That is as it should be.

I have made the comment before that I am sorry this current government has chosen to separate the Veterans' Affairs portfolio from the defence personnel part of the Defence portfolio. I think it makes a great deal of sense to combine the two. My experience of being a minister in both portfolios allowed me to be able to drive the two organisations closer together and make sure that these issues, which are of such import, were given the priority that they properly deserve. That is what it should be like. I would just counsel the government, if there are ministerial arrangements to be reorganised at some future point, that the Prime Minister might think about reuniting Veterans' Affairs with Defence in terms of the responsibility of a minister not only for veterans but also defence personnel. It makes a great deal of sense.

I also want to say that these initiatives have come from our acknowledgement, our parliament's acknowledgement, the current government's acknowledgement and the previous government's acknowledgement of the need to understand the stresses and the health needs of defence members and their families as a result of their service and to understand that, in the recent campaigns which have cause much distress to the Australian community, we have had an emerging issue to do with defence members and mental health issues. As we know from studies which have been done by both the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Department of Defence, we do not have a high prevalence of mental health issues in the defence community as opposed to in the rest of the community. That is not to say that people do not develop, once they have separated, mental health issues which need to be addressed.

The member for Brisbane talked about that transition space. She mentioned are going to Enoggera and talking to people who had had a poor experience through the transition phase. The problem, frankly, that we have in part is due to the fact that many defence members, once they have decided to separate from the Defence Force, do not want anything to do with Defence—which is not surprising, in a way. And often they will separate without having anything to do with their former comrades, so they lose contact. The problem we have is that it is difficult for government, the Department of Defence, the various services or the Department of Veterans' Affairs to put a tail on people who do not want to have a tail. If they do not want to be connected once they leave it is very difficult to connect them. Subsequently, when issues emerge around either a physical disability or a mental health issue as a result of their service, it is often very difficult to get them the service they properly require because they have lost that attachment. So one of the challenges is to ensure that defence personnel, whilst they are in service, understand that retaining this attachment is in their interests. That is why we have promoted the idea very strongly that there needs to be engagement with the veterans community whilst they are in defence.

One of the issues that I raise with the RSL on a continuing basis—and I appreciate the fact that they have acknowledged the need for this—is that they have to play a bigger role. They have to make themselves relevant to current and serving members. We heard the member for Canberra talk about a number of organisations—Soldier On, Young Diggers, Mates 4 Mates, Walking With The Wounded. These are all organisations which are dealing with current, serving members or people who have recently left the Defence Force. That is really good. What we want them to do, though, is make sure that they continue to proselytise the idea that there are benefits and systems in place to look after their interests.

What this piece of legislation does, in substantial manner, is to provide additional services to people who we believe will need them. The changes will include adding alcohol and substance abuse disorders to non-liability health care, and extending non-liability health care to those with peacetime service only. The legislation will provide for treatment of PTSD, anxiety disorder, depressive disorder and the new conditions of alcohol and substance use disorder for people who are not otherwise eligible for such treatment and who were discharged on the grounds of invalidity or physical or mental incapacity to perform duties.

These changes are very important, but the legislation also amends the Veterans' Entitlements Act to enable eligibility for counselling services for veterans to be expanded to additional client groups. There are currently restrictions. It will involve people from the border protection service, people who serve in Australian or overseas disaster zones, members involved in training accidents, members who are medically discharged and submariners. It will also involve their eligible children, up till the age of 26. They will also be eligible for these services.

This is vitally important, because we have people going overseas and doing the most dangerous things whilst putting this uniform on for us. When they go away they are involved in activities, and we have had 40 deaths in Afghanistan. There have been over 200 wounded. We have large numbers who have come back with mental health issues. Their families suffer consequently and we have an obligation to make sure those families—the spouses, the parents, the children—have access to those services which they properly require. It is part of our national responsibility. It is part of our national obligation to make sure that, when we put that uniform on someone, we tell that someone that we will look after them and their family. If we do not, we are abrogating our responsibility not only to them but to the nation. I feel very strongly about these matters and I am very pleased with this piece of legislation.

One of the things that I think we need to comprehend is that there has not been a tsunami of mental health issues out of service, but that is not to say that there will not be a radical or a dramatic increase in the number of people who require services for mental health and other disorders in the future. The thing that concerns me most is that we have had people doing seven, eight, nine or 10 rotations in and out of Afghanistan, especially in the special forces arena. Once they separate, my concern is that some of the issues which they have needed to confront and deal with properly whilst they have been in service may be issues that they find difficult to deal with at some time down the line. It is therefore very, very, very important that we implement the changes which are in this legislation.

We have forgotten this previously. We have really not dealt with the fact that people on border protection—these brave men and women who are doing the border protection work for our nation in a very high-stress situation—were not covered. Submariners were not covered. We have to say to ourselves that that is an obligation we failed. Now we have fixed it. We owe those young men and women who are doing this border protection work, who potentially suffer as a result of seeing the most horrendous things and being involved in very difficult set of circumstances, a great debt of gratitude, clearly. But we have an obligation to them and an obligation to their families. We need to make sure that those obligations are properly met, and I think this legislation does that appropriately.

When we talk about the nature of service, the young men and women who put on a uniform and go to war are doing it for the best of reasons. They are often very naive young people when they start, but they become very hardened and understand the difficulties of war once they have been in that situation. Those of us who have not been there, those of us who have not had the uniform on and been involved in one of these conflicts or in border protection, those of us who have not been submariners or been involved in peacetime operations such as at Aceh, cannot appreciate the difficulties that these young men and women have confronted.

I want to pay my respects to those men and women for their service but also genuinely acknowledge the great leadership which has been shown in the defence community and in the Department of Veterans' Affairs by the senior leaders of those organisations. I think they have done tremendous work over the last few years to bring the Defence Force community on, to make sure that we are addressing their particular needs and to understand that we do have an obligation.

The member for Canberra talked about that wonderful play The Long Way Home. I want to thank the Chief of the Defence Force, General Hurley, because without him that would not have happened. He was prepared to commit the resources out of defence to make sure that The Long Way Home happened. The brave men and women who participated in that program need to be acknowledge also.

I want to particularly mention the families. I mentioned Soldier On and all of those other organisations previously, but there is another organisation called Families of the Fallen, which has been an initiative of Ray Palmer and his wife, Pam. Ray and Pam lost their son, Private Scott Palmer, in a helicopter crash when he was with the 2nd Commando on 21 June 2010. Recently they had a walk from Mataranka, which is south of Katherine, to Robertson Barracks to raise money for Families of the Fallen. There are 40 families. Think about that. Ray and Pam lost their son as did another 39 parents. All those parents, brothers, sisters, kids and partners are adversely affected by the fact that those sons sacrificed their lives for our great country. I want to acknowledge the Families of the Fallen and Ray Palmer in particular for his massive work and the Kokoda tracks that they have put in place to assist veterans who have been part of this conflict.

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