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

I also want to acknowledge the members of the ADF that joined us this week for the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program and thank them for their service to our nation. There's been a lot of shouting across the chamber in this important debate this morning, and I think that members of the ADF and the Australian public expect better from us when it comes to discussions about defence in the parliament. We should be acting in a bipartisan way when it comes to the defence of our nation. That's why Labor, when in opposition, supported the AUKUS arrangement that was reached by the former government, and that's why we're getting on with the job of delivering a nuclear submarine capability for Australia. Importantly, the Nuclear Powered Submarine Taskforce will report in March about which technology we'll go with, but also about the human investments that we need to make to develop a nuclear propelled submarine industry in Australia.

The unprecedented and difficult strategic circumstances that our nation faces at the moment have been commented on this morning. Having worked in this portfolio for the last six months, I've been struck by the pace of technological change, particularly when it comes to weapons, deterrence and cybercapacity. If Australia is going to maintain its capability edge, we need to be making the necessary investments and ensuring that we have the correct posture to deal with the challenges ahead. That's the focus behind the Defence Strategic Review. This will ensure that we're advised by the leads, in March next year, about the posture that Australia should adopt and, importantly, the capabilities that we should be investing in and the human capital that we will need to deliver those capabilities into the future.

We all know that we need to grow the Australian Defence Force. The previous government estimated that we would need 18½ thousand new ADF members by 2040. We've adopted that approach in a bipartisan manner, and we're getting on with the details of providing support to recruit more members to the ADF and to retain them. That is what the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme Amendment Bill, which I put into the parliament last week and is currently going through the Senate today and tomorrow, is all about delivering. It has $46.2 million of improved access to support for ADF members and veterans to buy a home. We're reducing the qualifying period and removing the post-service cap for veterans to ensure that more ADF personnel and veterans can get support to buy their home in a difficult labour market.

We also know that the ADF has been involved in disaster relief in recent years, and that is increasing. I want to thank the ADF for the important role they've played in ensuring that communities can recover from disasters. But that's not the role that they signed up for, and we need to be conscious of the fact that, with climate change getting worse, we need to support disaster relief in Australia. That's what the government is doing by supporting Disaster Relief Australia with $38.1 million over the next three years to expand their veteran-led approach to supporting disaster relief in communities affected by natural disasters. The shadow minister for veterans' affairs mentioned the role of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. I say to the shadow minister that we have the Deputy Prime Minister in cabinet looking after veterans. As well, we now have four ministers—a record number—working in the defence and veterans' affairs space.

The key issue for veterans has been the backlog with processing claims through the Department of Veterans' Affairs. The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide has recognised that this is a key issue that's led to a deterioration in the mental health conditions of many veterans. The government is getting on with reducing that backlog by removing the staffing cap that was put in place by the previous government, which was a handbrake on processing those important veterans' applications. That cap has been removed. We're investing in 500 additional staff, and the anecdotal evidence that I'm getting when visiting the country is that that backlog is now starting to come down. That is important support for veterans.

In regard to veterans' hubs, we promised to invest in 10. Two will be announced and opened next week. The minister is going to open two of them next week, and eight of them are under construction or in the planning phase. We are delivering on the election commitment that we made. In terms of memorials, there is the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway in Sydney. Again, $186,000 per year for the next four years is the Labor government's commitment to supporting commemoration of those who served our nation.

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