Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

It would appear that the government has no plans for any new veterans hubs, as was alluded to by Mr Joyce earlier. Two of the completed hubs recently announced were fully funded by the former coalition government, in Tasmania and South-East Queensland. The one that I will speak of most passionately is the north-west veterans hub, in the north-western part of Tasmania, which has been on the go for quite some time, and it has finally got its deed. Dr Andrew Clarke is the guy that heads that facility up—a former ammo tech, a bomb technician in the Army, a major, and now a GP on the north-west coast of Tasmania. He wants me to extend to the minister his thanks for finalising the deed—even though the minister probably took years of that doctor's life by stretching that process out. Nevertheless, it is up and running and it plays a pivotal role in the transition between the big family that is Defence and the new family which is civilian life. What I like about the north-west veterans hub—in fact, what I like about the veterans hub projects moreover is that they have a family-centric, positive, welfare-driven mandate as far as outcomes are concerned. They don't look over the shoulder, there is no time for pity parties. We expect our veterans to get up off the couch and do something for themselves, and we're there to stand by and support them in their new transition from military into civilian life and a way forward. I'm concerned, however, that there is no announcement of any future or subsequent veterans hubs from this government, and I'd like the minister to answer to that. I would also like him to answer why, in the home of the soldier at Kapooka in Wagga Wagga, there's no wellness centre or veterans hub. If anyone deserves a wellness centre or a veterans hub, I would have thought it would be the home of the soldier.

In 2018 the former coalition government introduced a program to maintain incapacity payments to veterans who were studying. The coalition improved the program to provide 100 per cent of veterans with pre-entry earnings for them to undertake full-time study as part of DVA approved rehabilitation plans. Without the coalition's 100 per cent subsidy, those payments would have phased out at 75 per cent over the 45 subsequent weeks. Not only has the 100 per cent subsidy gone but the entire program also is coming to an end. From 1 July, for all the veterans out there, it's over. What's the minister doing about this? I would request—in fact, our veteran community would like to see and to understand the minister's tabling of the analysis on which this decision was based. Additionally, the minister must explain what will happen to those veterans who are currently on courses and receiving the 100 per cent salary equivalent. What's going to happen to the courses? Where's their money going to come from? What does their future involve? Their future is unclear, and I would like the minister to clear that up for our veteran community.

Finally and importantly, Labor's first budget last year slashed more than $2 million from a dedicated program to mark the private graves of First World War veterans—the unmarked graves. I've been to some of these gravesites throughout Tasmania, and there is a lovely lady by the name of Andrea Gerrard who is heading up this program. She is an older lady, an experienced and dedicated lady, who has put her heart and soul into this, and $2 million from this program has been removed. This means that the blackberry-overgrown, sunken depression that holds a digger who served his country in the First World War hasn't even got a tombstone on it. The coalition put $3.7 million in forward estimates into this project. Labor is funding $1.5 million. They can't put these gravestones on these unmarked graves without that funding. What is the minister doing about it? In 2023-24 there is just $201,000 allocated for the program, and I would like to pass on from Andrea Gerrard in Tasmania that she can't do it without that increased funding. I'd like the minister to explain to me, the veteran community and Australia why our World War I diggers don't deserve a tombstone. Goodness me!

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