Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I agree with the member for Herbert that we must support veterans and ex-service personnel and their families. It's something that I and this government have made the focus of our work over the last two years. Just two weeks ago I had the privilege of spending a few days with the ship's company of HMAS Melville off Cairns. They were doing their deployment readiness. A number of the ship's company—about 10 out of a ship's company of 80-odd—come from the Sunshine Coast. The level of professionalism demonstrated in the days that I was with them was exceptionally high, as high as I've seen all around the country, whether it be on HMAS Canberra or on the many bases I've had the privilege of visiting. We can be very proud of our service personnel.

When these service personnel are discharged and leave the military our obligations as a government do not cease. Our obligations continue to ensure that we look after them as well as we possibly can not just when they're in uniform but, more particularly, when they leave. We know, and I'm sure the member for Eden-Monaro will back me up on this, that they're flying, driving or sailing multimillion and sometimes multibillion-dollar equipment. These young men and women have a sense of purpose, a sense of mission and a sense of tribe—a sense that no matter what happens their mate is going to be standing next to them and will look after them. Then, when they discharge, they lose all of that. They lose their sense of mission, their sense of purpose and their sense of tribe, and there is a great sense of overwhelming grief and a feeling of 'Well, what the hell do I do now?' The way that we structure our military is that we do so much for them when they are in it that many of these young men and women have never even filled out a rental application form or have Medicare cards—the sort of basic stuff that civilians take for granted. When they discharge, they lose all of that. I think that there is a recognition on both sides of the chamber that we've got to do a whole lot better. I happen to believe that we're doing great work, and it's continuing to improve. But we've also got to acknowledge that there is so much more to do. I want to acknowledge the member for Eden-Monaro for his service to his country, and every member and senator in this place that have served and pulled on the uniform. They know this stuff much better than I do. I've never served. I've had the privilege of looking from the outside, but I'm immensely proud of the work that these, often young, men and women do—like Sara Barnett, who's the XO on HMAS Melville from Maleny in my electorate. She's an outstanding professional, and to see them go through their drills is really quite inspiring.

There are an estimated 15,000 veterans on the Sunshine Coast—and I acknowledge my friend and member for Fairfax here who will also speak on this. The Sunshine Coast has an inordinate number of veterans because it's a great place to retire, but he and I have an obligation to ensure that we do everything that we can as a government to ensure that their transition is an effective one.

In this year's budget the government has committed to more than $11 billion to provide the essential services that our veterans rely on—$11 billion. We're improving our DVA. We know that there are always issues and that not everybody is going to be happy all the time, but we're providing an additional $100 million in this year's budget, on top of the $166.6 million last year, to support the coalition government's improvements to DVA, upgrading its internal computer systems and, importantly— (Time expired)

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