Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Veterans' Entitlements Amendment Bill 2018, which has bipartisan support. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank and acknowledge those opposite for their support of this bill. The Australian government will establish an Australian veterans' covenant that acknowledges the service and sacrifices of the veteran community. The government has been supporting veterans and their families for 100 years. As the Department of Veterans' Affairs heads into its second century, much has changed but the commitment to supporting veterans and their families remains steadfast. So many of our Defence Force men and women end their lives away from Australia, on a different shore. They, too, do a great job in providing services not just to our nation but to those who live in many different countries in the world. Their efforts are extraordinary.

The government invests more than $11 billion each year in supporting veterans and their families and continues to invest in veterans' services to ensure the system of support is amongst the best in the world. Recently, I visited the sub-branch of Sapphire, which is on the Gemfields in Central Queensland. When I asked for a show of hands on how they were being looked after, they all put up their hands and said that the Australian government is as one in looking after their services and their health. Supporting those who have served our nation is the responsibility of not just government but the whole grateful nation. Communities and businesses from across the country all have a role to play in ensuring veterans and their families are supported.

The Veterans' Entitlement Amendment Bill 2018 was introduced on 22 August 2018 to reinsert inadvertently removed provisions to offset pension overpayments from bereavement payments in one streamlined transaction. This is a compassionate, sympathetic and unobtrusive response which avoids disturbing the families with the additional interaction with DVA while they are grieving. These amendments regularise DVA practice and do not change current entitlements for veterans or their families. Everything will remain the same. It only means that it will be streamlined. DVA already has the legal authority to provide bereavement payments and to recover overpayments of income support pensions. This will streamline these two transactions into one transaction.

In my electorate of Flynn, there have been three recent announcements. The first was in relation to $27,500 to the Armistice Centenary Grants, which was allocated to the Taroom RSL to install a new war memorial at the Ludwig Leichhardt centre in Taroom. The second was for Saluting their Service—a government's grant of $4,000 to upgrade the Emerald State High School's centenary memorial. The third was at Agnes Water/1770 RSL Sub-Branch—a grant of $7,725 under the Veteran and Community Grants program to undertake bus trips to reduce social isolation and purchase first aid training.

There are 1,550 veterans in my electorate. The average age is 65. Around one-third of those 1,550 are receiving service pensions. There is a streamlining, unobtrusive process continuing, with bereavement payments being made. In 2015, we re-enacted a troop train movement from Winton to Brisbane, and that went very well. We had 250 people on that train. It highlighted the fact that 550 First World War troops came from the small town of Winton, north of Longreach. It took a hell of a toll on that town in the First World War, with most young men of the right age committing themselves to that war. Many of them, of course, did not return.

In light of the time and to give someone else a chance to speak, I'd like to close. Before I do that, I'd like to pay my respects to Con Sciacca. Paul Neville, the former member for Hinkler, often told me what a great man Con Sciacca was and how he worked so hard for the DVA. Con was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to ex-personnel. Paul said he was just a dream to work with. Paul was a good National from Bundaberg and Con was a Labor man from Brisbane, but together they worked so hard for the betterment of the lives of those who were left—those who fought so hard for our country.

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