Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a very important bill and, as the member for Oxley has just told the House, it is a great example of bipartisanship and collaboration between the minister and the shadow minister. I pay tribute to the shadow minister. She's been an excellent shadow minister for veterans' affairs and her diligence has seen the elevation of the Veterans' Affairs portfolio to the shadow cabinet, which I think emphasises the significance of the portfolio from the perspective of the opposition.

Labor is supportive of changes in this bill which will clarify, improve or streamline the operation of the law and processes within the Department of Veterans' Affairs. This bill is an omnibus bill. It contains eight schedules which deal with a variety of elements in the legislation. It's fair to say that through the interventions of the shadow minister, amendments will be proposed that will significantly improve the operation of this bill in the interests of veterans and ex-service personnel.

I do want to talk a little about the importance of veterans and veterans' support, including in my own community. I also want to touch on, as the member for Oxley did, the recent ministerial statement in respect of suicide amongst veterans and ex-service personnel, to emphasise the importance of continuing to respond to suicide within that community and to provide support. I'm really fortunate as a member of parliament to have had, for the entire time I have been a member, constant and regular engagement with ADSO to talk about veterans' issues. The local representatives of ADSO were one of the first groups to contact me after I was elected at a by-election in February 2014, seeking to set up regularly scheduled meetings, which we did set up. I want to thank them for the work they have done and continue to do around the country, not just in my electorate, actually helping members of parliament to understand the issues that are unique to and that face the community of veterans and ex-service personnel. I particularly wanted to thank, from ADSO, Ted Chitham and Ross Clelland. They have been quite tenacious and unrelenting in seeking to raise with me several issues that are relevant to the lives of veterans and ex-service personnel. I know they will have seen and noted the work that's been done in respect of suicide in the community, for example.

I also wanted to thank the late Peter Snowdon, who was one of the first of the ADSO representatives to visit me. It was very sad to lose Peter from our community, and the veterans' community lost a very good advocate when Peter passed. I want to acknowledge his work as an advocate for veterans' interests and as somebody who would come to my office and talk to me about these really difficult issues. Occasionally, he would send an email directly to me raising any number of issues. We often disagreed, but he was always so positive about it, so willing to engage in a spirited debate and discussion, and such a great supporter of ADSO's continued engagements with members of parliament. I do miss him and I'm very sorry for the community's loss of Peter.

I'm also fortunate to have in the electorate of Griffith the Greenslopes Private Hospital, which is a veterans' hospital and has been a veterans' hospital since it was established. Greenslopes Private Hospital staff are well known in the community for the work they do with veterans. Their very beautifully put together Anzac Day service, which is a service at dawn that is so well attended by the local community, gets hundreds and hundreds of people. They have an amazing Catafalque party from the local Anglican church grammar school, a beautiful choir from Somerville House that perform every year exceptionally well, and very, very senior representations from the local community and the veterans' community. It's not just the work they do in commemoration and acknowledgment; it's the work they also do in the real issues facing veterans today, and I'm speaking particularly about the work that that foundation does to support post-traumatic stress disorder research.

The Greenslopes Private Hospital also auspices the Gallipoli Medical Research Foundation, which is doing a lot of work in relation to PTSD, including a study in relation to Vietnam veterans which I have referred to in this chamber before. The study found that one in three Australian veterans from the Vietnam War developed PTSD, and that participants with PTSD had four times the chance of having had a heart attack in the past; two times the risk of stomach ulcers; more than triple the risk of acting out their dreams while asleep; almost twice the tendency for restless legs; and increased daytime fatigue and sleepiness, as well as two times the risk of suffering sleep apnoea; double the chance of reflux; a greater tendency to report constipation, diarrhoea and irritable bowel syndrome; and lower levels of good cholesterol, which contributes to an increased risk of heart disease. The ramifications of developing PTSD are physical and psychological, and it is very important that organisations like the Gallipoli Medical Research Foundation continue their work of providing an evidence base about what can be done for veterans who have developed PTSD as a consequence of their service.

I also want to mention the work that is being done by the many RSL sub-branches—and you couldn't talk about the work that's being done for veterans without doing so—in my electorate of Griffith. Being an inner suburbs seat in Brisbane, we're fortunate that we have a range of organisations that provide support for veterans, and we have a range of RSL sub-branches. I couldn't possibly do all of them justice in the short time left to me, but I did want to mention a couple of the RSL sub-branches that I've visited recently.

The first is the Holland Park sub-branch. Every sub-branch is special, but this one is special in a particular way. It's a very naval sub-branch of the RSL. It's led by Sonja and Alan Hellier, who are well known in RSL circles in Queensland. They are both excellent people. Someone said to me the other day, 'What Sonja Hellier doesn't know about welfare for veterans could fit on a postage stamp,' and I think that's pretty accurate. She is a wealth of knowledge for the local community in relation to veterans and welfare. The two of them, together with the committee for that RSL, do so much great work to bring the community together and bring the RSL membership together, and I really want to acknowledge them. I went to the sub-branch's lunch recently. We heard from a really interesting speaker who'd came to military service quite late in his life—not that late, but not as a young person. That's the sort of thing they do. They bring people together; they bring diverse viewpoints together. And, of course, I also always see them every year at the commemoration of the Voyager disaster at St Mary's at Kangaroo Point, which is a very moving service. So I want to acknowledge them both for the work that they do in our community.

Another sub-branch that I've visited recently is the Norman Park RSL sub-branch. Again, it's very special. It's a sub-branch focused on nashos. They have a really great, active sub-branch with, again, excellent commemorations on Anzac Day and, of course, Remembrance Day, which is forthcoming. The nashos came up with a really lovely idea, which was to seek to obtain from the Australian War Memorial a sapling of a Lone Pine and have that planted right behind the memorial at Norman Park. It's a beautiful memorial, so I was very pleased to donate the sapling from the Australian War Memorial. Recently, I met with the leadership of the sub-branch, Brian and Margaret Besgrove, and also with Ken Cork, who'd been the motivating instigator of the Lone Pine project, for a small ceremony in relation to the planting of that Lone Pine.

I do encourage other RSL sub-branches to have a look at what the Australian War Memorial can do in terms of providing Lone Pine saplings. Obviously, for my own electorate, I'd be very, very pleased to assist those who don't have them to obtain Lone Pine trees. It is a really beautiful acknowledgment, particularly as we are commemorating the Centenary of Anzac over these few years in the current period. The nashos sub-branch at Norman Park is a really beautiful sub-branch. So much work is being done there for the welfare of veterans and ex-service personnel. I went to one of their recent lunches as well where we had a really great turnout and a great opportunity to talk about some of the issues of concern to veterans, and a few other issues as well, of course.

In acknowledging the importance of responding to the needs of veterans and ex-service personnel, I did want to mention those organisations. As I say, they are certainly not the only RSL sub-branches in my electorate. There are many of them, and each one of them is unique. Each of them has a specific interest or focus. I went to the Greek RSL sub-branch a little while ago now for a commemoration in Brisbane city. It was a beautiful commemoration for the Greek community as well. I'd better stop because I can't possibly list every single RSL sub-branch in the electorate in this one speech, but I do acknowledge them all for the work that they do.

Like the member for Oxley, I have had family members who have had active service in World War I and World War II, and I do think it is important, whenever we talk about veterans' affairs in this place, to stop and acknowledge what that really means: what active service has meant, what involvement in peacekeeping operations has meant and what it has meant to be a member of the Defence Force, for all ex-service personnel—people who volunteered to make great sacrifices for the country. We owe them a great debt of gratitude, and that willingness, the voluntary nature of it and the sacrifices made, whether in active service or not, ought to be acknowledged at every opportunity when veterans' affairs matters are being considered in this parliament, and I do so now.

I also wanted to touch on, as I said, the bipartisanship around suicide prevention for veterans and ex-service personnel. The minister did make a statement and there was bipartisan support for that. There's a recent Australian government response to a Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee report in relation to suicide by veterans. It's very pleasing to see that the government has accepted the recommendations of that report and has signalled an intention to undertake a range of measures with a view to preventing suicide amongst veterans and ex-service personnel. All of us in this House of Representatives will have heard from local veterans of the loss of friends that they have suffered as a consequence of suicide. All of us will have attended events, like the event that was held here at parliament in recent months, to commemorate suicide amongst veterans.

So it is incredibly important of course that the minister—having published a response to the committee's report, accepting the recommendations that have been made—now vigorously seek to implement all of those recommendations which he has accepted. We know that, in order to get things done in this place, you need vigorous application to the cause. You need constant follow-up. I'm quite confident that the minister and the shadow minister will continue to pursue, with vigour, measures that will improve our response to suicide amongst veterans and ex-service personnel and that that will improve suicide prevention amongst that community as well. It's a very important bipartisan approach that needs to be taken in relation to those issues.

I did want to say just a couple of things about the bill. As I said at the outset, it is an omnibus bill. There have been a couple of particular amendments to the bill that have been inspired by the concerns raised by the Labor opposition, including in respect of the Veterans' Review Board's ability to dismiss an application for review, which caused some concern in the ex-service community. I'm very pleased that the shadow minister was able to lead negotiations for amendments that will deal with some of the concerns that have been raised. I'm also very pleased that this is such a wide-ranging bill that will have such bipartisan support in moves to improve the lives of the veterans and ex-service community. Accordingly, Labor is supportive of the changes which streamline or improve the operation of the law, as far as it does improve processes for veterans, and, in light of the amendments that the government is planning to make, we'll support the bill. (Time expired)

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