Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

It is an absolute pleasure to have the opportunity to speak on our defence and veterans' affairs budget here today because, during the course of the last 12 months, the Albanese government has been making generational decisions in defence and veterans affairs: establishing the pathway by which Australia will acquire a nuclear-powered submarine capability, and re-tasking the Australian Defence Force for the first time in 35 years. Underpinning this have been difficult but real funding decisions, which have seen $7.8 billion of spending being reprioritised over the course of the next four years and a growth in the defence budget of 0.2 per cent of GDP above what we inherited from those opposite, over the course of the next decade. We are making the difficult but necessary decisions. We're making substantial, funded announcements.

When those opposite were in government and faced with a problem in defence, their solution was to make an announcement, but without any actual money behind it: $42 billion of unfunded defence announcements, which put an intense pressure on the Department of Defence to take action but with no actual money to take that action. In the Defence Strategic Review and as exposed through Senate estimates, we learnt that the former government regarded the defence budget as their piggybank—a piggybank that they were very happy to raid, with the effective outcome of a significant cut in defence spending: some $20 billion of effective cuts.

The same can be said for how the previous government treated the Department of Veterans' Affairs, and I'm proud that, after almost a decade of chronic under-resourcing and underfunding, the Albanese Labor government has now turned that around. We have invested in the Department of Veterans' Affairs, placing it in the best position it has been in in three decades. So Australians can have no doubt that supporting defence personnel, veterans and families is a key priority for the Albanese Labor government.

In September of last year, the claims backlog that we inherited was still on an upward trajectory and had hit 45,000 DVA claims. At the end of May, we had got that down to just over 34,000—that's a 23 per cent drop from its peak, and it is continuing to fall. We are spending $322.3 million, as set out in the last two Labor budgets, to employ and retain additional staff at the Department of Veterans' Affairs to get through those claims. We've budgeted $341.1 million to fund the modernisation and sustainment of the IT systems within DVA to support the processing of those claims. We've budgeted $46.7 million to fund the delivery of 10 veterans and families hubs in the areas where we have the highest concentration of veterans around the country. And we're rolling out a $24 million Veterans' Employment Program.

Now, unlike when we came into government, over 90 per cent—in fact, nearly 100 per cent—of invoices for in-home support for veterans and families are being processed within 20 days. That had blown out to over three months for most invoices when we came into government. We now have that under control. And we have increased the annual TPI payment by $1,000, to support some 27,000 of our most injured veterans. The Defence, Veterans' and Families' Acute Support Package was introduced by this government, expanded across the spectrum of veterans, and in the budget last month we expanded that to also include grandcarer veteran families. We've improved access to mental health supports. We're providing better access to GPs by tripling the veterans access payment. And we've now acted on all 13 recommendations of the interim report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

Of course, we have also been building on our support for our Defence Force personnel. The legacy that we inherited after almost a decade of the Liberal Party was an ADF workforce over 10 years that only grew by just over 2,000 people despite the very real need to grow the size of our Defence Force. I say to the member for Herbert, who clearly does not understand anything to do with strategic imperatives let alone the content of the Defence Strategic Review, I think all of the members of the Defence Force in his electorate as well as around the country can have great confidence in their ongoing purpose and their ongoing role in our Defence Force. I am very clear that they have an ongoing purpose, an ongoing role and will continue to have that, because we are continuing to fund the purchase of infantry fighting vehicles but in a reprioritised manner and that is really important. Of course, what is important is that our Defence Force is able to do what is needed in the strategic circumstances that we face. If you want to not politicise the veterans' affairs budget, you would support housing for homeless veterans. (Time expired)

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