Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

ITCHELL () (): Today I rise proudly to support the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2023. It's this kind of work we do on this kind of bill that goes across party lines, and it goes to the spirit and the strength of what makes our democracy great. When it comes to our veterans and our current serving and former ADF personnel, we do take the time to reflect and remember, particularly as we head into what is, hopefully, the second-last sitting day before our Anzac Day services. To me, without a doubt, the most important event on the Australian calendar is the Anzac Day service. This year, I'm going to have the absolute honour of being with probably our last World War II veteran. He has now reached triple figures. He has great pride in taking part in the marches. What he has done with communities is just absolutely amazing. We know that there are a lot of members in this parliament and, when we look back, in previous parliaments who have been members of the ADF and who have served their country.

One of great things that we do have in this parliament, of course, is the ADF program. The member for Riverina and I have made a few trips right across the globe, and we've seen and done a few things, but the most important thing that we've done together is to sit down and talk to personnel directly, with no fanfare and with no suits and ties. I remember sitting and drinking that terrible 'near beer' in Afghanistan. It's so bad you could kill paspalum with it. It was important to sit there and listen to their stories about what they're hearing, what they feel and what they go through. It's a story replicated by anyone who has been in the ADF and been in the theatre of war. As both previous speakers have said, there's no greater love for your country than putting your life on the line. As we come to the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, we think about the 62,100 men and women that went there.

One of the great achievements that I've been able to be involved in was building the commemorative walk in Seymour. Five veterans sat with me in a lounge room and said, 'We want to do this,' and at the time, my predecessor said it was not possible. I was desperate to win that I said: 'Yes, let's do it. Let's get going.' Anyone who has had the chance to go to the Vietnam Veterans Commemorative Walk will see that it's not a memorial; it's a commemorative walk. We fought tooth and nail to get a huge wall built with the name of every person that went, including a separate wall for the 522 Australians who lost their lives in the Vietnam conflict. It was a long process. What they wanted for this commemorative wall was to have artefacts from the Vietnam War, including a 'Huey' helicopter, which is the symbol of the Vietnam War. The painting that depicts the dust-off from the Vietnam War proudly hangs in my office, and I treasure that.

We took on the challenges to get that 'Huey' helicopter there and put it up on a pole, so it looks like it's flying around past a scaled-down version of the Luscombe Bowl, which was, of course, the site of the famous concert on the night of the start of the Battle of Long Tan. Further up, we have an armoured personnel carrier. I remember going out to the armoured car workshops at Puckapunyal and seeing an APC that was used in the Long Tan battle, and I thought, 'How good would it be to get that sitting on the commemorative area?' That area has all the rubber trees and everything in it, including the Long Tan cross that was made by one of the original sculptors who did the one in Vietnam, so it's a very special place. I thought, 'It would be really great if we can get hold of this,' and Major Peter Branagan, who the workshops are named after, bellowed across the chamber: 'You're not getting your filthy hands on that. That's ours!' So the compromise was that the armour plate on the front of the APC is actually from one in Vietnam. But, to me, that spoke to how important it was for them that that piece of artillery stay at Puckapunyal, where they are. They guard that with every breath they have. When I hear these sorts of stories and speak to veterans, I think of the nashos. Ian Goss, in the member for Hawke's electorate, came to me and said, 'Let's start a dawn service.' We did that with the nashos.

We look back at what our veterans have done and what they've faced—and at the ones who have made the ultimate sacrifice. I've often spoken in this place of VX39234. That's my grandfather, who served in Tobruk and then in Papua New Guinea as an anti-aircraft gunner. When he left the Army at the end of 1945, he was discharged with shell shock, which we now know is actually PTSD. If you're an anti-aircraft gunner, those things are loud and persistent, particularly when you're somewhere like Tobruk, and back in those days there was no hearing protection. Those guys stood in the desert, day in, day out, in a pair of shorts. That really got to him.

Our veterans from Vietnam and from the Middle East go through a lot of problems, and it's incumbent on us to do everything we can to support them and to help them because there are many scars that we don't see, there are many memories that we don't see and there are many things that they've seen that we don't want to see. But we have an obligation to work together to make sure that we look after them. I'm not going to have a crack at the former government, but one thing that has really annoyed me for a long time is the time it takes for veterans to get their claims heard and assessed. It has been woeful. I think of one veteran who had to wait a thousand days just to get his claim heard. That's absolutely wrong. It's painful when you see someone sitting there, and they're just in this limbo and they don't know what has to happen.

Before the election, we said we would increase DVA staffing. It has been unanimous across the board that everyone has had issues with the way the DVA has operated. I want to particularly thank Minister Keogh. I rang him, and, in my gentle tones and calm voice, I spoke to him bluntly about the need to have this addressed.

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