Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I'm of course speaking in support of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment (Incapacity Payments) Bill 2022. I'm glad that this bill is receiving bipartisan support.

Unfortunately, the previous government let veterans down in a number of ways. They resisted calls for a royal commission into veteran suicide, and, of course, we know their pointless staffing cap on the Department of Veterans' Affairs has meant that we now have a crisis in terms of the backlog of compensation claims that exist in the department, which is causing serious mental health issues for a number of veterans throughout the country. The great shame about that crisis we have developed in veterans' affairs is that it could have been avoided if the previous government hadn't let ideology get in the way of the management of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. By putting a staffing cap on the number of people that could work on resolving compensation claims for veterans, they artificially ensured that we had a crisis develop. It will now be up to the Albanese Labor government to try to fix that crisis, and that is what we are trying to do. It's a commitment that we have to veterans that should be shared by all of us in this place because we all have a duty to look after those who have served our nation, and that means being there for the occasion, when it counts, for Australian Defence Force personnel, veterans and their families.

This particular bill resumes access to the beneficial calculation of incapacity payments for eligible veterans. For veterans undergoing rehabilitation, we know that ongoing financial security can be a concern. A lack of financial support can impede their rehabilitation, particularly when they're working towards long-term rehabilitation goals such as engaging in tertiary education. The Maintaining Incapacity Payments for Veterans Studying pilot program was launched in 2018 to enable incapacity payments to continue to be paid up to 100 per cent of normal earning for veterans undertaking full-time study as part of the DVA-approved rehabilitation plan. Normally those payments would have stepped down to 75 per cent after 45 weeks. The aim of the pilot is to ensure veterans who are undertaking full-time study as part of a DVA vocational rehabilitation program receive ongoing financial support equivalent to the income they would have earned had they remained in the Australian Defence Force.

Provision was made in the 2022 budget for a one-year extension of the pilot program until 30 June 2023. Unfortunately, under the previous government, the necessary legislation wasn't passed in time to extend the pilot before it expired on 30 June this year. The department has attempted to contact all of the veterans in the pilot program—there are around 417—to discuss continued support by DVA following the expiry of the pilot.

The Defence, Veterans' and Families' Acute Support Package Bill was introduced here on 3 August to improve the existing family support package, as recommended by the Productivity Commission. This package will expand eligibility for families and widowed partners under all three acts, including by removing requirements for a veteran to be participating in rehabilitation or to have rendered warlike service, by providing greater flexibility by introducing an annual financial cap on services rather than a limit on each category of support and by including more practical services that help a family to function well. These practical services include activities such as child care; counselling and financial counselling; household assistance, meal preparation and cleaning; services to build capacity such as relationship skills and mental health first aid.

We've already seen significant progress in helping to build this capacity. Last month, I was proud to announce a partnership between DVA, the Department of Defence and Phoenix Australia Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, which led to a world-first research project on the development of an innovative new treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The research explored a new form of intensive exposure therapy, and results showed it to be as effective as a standard treatment whilst offering greater lifestyle choices for veterans.

The improvement comes in the length of the rehabilitation course. Ordinarily, a veteran undertaking PTSD therapy and rehabilitation would enter into a 10-week course, undertaking a session once a week over 10 weeks. This study looked at the benefits of compressing that course into a two-week period of attendance every day over 10 days, and the results were significant. They found that the outcomes were the same, but, importantly, the dropout rate from this particular form of therapy was greatly reduced by the compressed nature of the course. Up to 40 per cent fewer participants dropped out of the course when they undertook the two-week intensive course compared to the longer 10-week course.

We all know that our veterans experience PTSD at higher rates than the general population, and that's why we're committed to offering veterans experiencing PTSD the best range of treatments possible. This Rapid Exposure Supporting Trauma Recovery, or RESTORE trial as it's known, investigated a new method of delivering that PTSD training over a two-week period. The RESTORE trial found that the intensive exposure therapy is equally as effective as the standard therapy and the dropout rate was lower, as I said.

The innovative new therapy, which has been developed in Australia, is now being offered to veterans and their families through Open Arms, the veterans and families counselling service. Open Arms provides these high-quality, evidence based, accessible and tailored healthcare packages that respond to the unique nature of military service and its impacts on veterans and their families. It's another example of how the Albanese government is committed to veterans and their families.

The Defence, Veterans' and Families' Acute Support Package Bill will deliver more flexible support in the nature of that RESTORE trial quickly to vulnerable families. The bill goes further than the one introduced by the previous government by providing review rights and extending support to former partners. We have an obligation to ensure all of our Defence Force personnel are kept safe here and abroad, mentally and physically. The same goes for when they come home, and the same goes for when they retire from the service. These changes will help deliver more positive outcomes for many defence and veteran communities, and I commend the bill to the House.

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