Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The motion by the member for Fisher pretends the government is scrapping a program that his government had intended to continue. It was a pilot program. It has been assessed, the evidence is in and the government has decided to progress more productive ways to assist veterans. In any event, the coalition did not provide for the pilot program to continue into 2022-23, and it is the Albanese government that has provided for it to continue until now. On what basis does the coalition now say they intended this or other programs across various departments to continue if they didn't provide for them in the forward estimates and they didn't bother legislating them? The motion is therefore poorly grounded and is misleading.

The motion does, however, allow me to remind the House and the veterans of Australia of the ways in which this government, since coming to office just 12 months ago, has continued to honour those who have given so much to protect Australia's interests at home and abroad. In truth, I have never seen a more active Minister for Veterans' Affairs. I take any opportunity to relay to the RSLs in my electorate of Hasluck, being the sub-branches at Bassendean, Bellevue, Chidlow, Ellenbrook, Kalamunda and Mundaring, just how much the government has been doing for our veterans. There's already a great deal for veterans and their families to like and a great deal left to the coalition to explain as to why the veterans claims system was allowed to be run down and cause delay, heartache and ongoing frustration to the thousands of our men and women who have done their service and who reasonably expect to be served well by the government and not poorly.

This government, this minister, has hit the ground running in this portfolio. On 24 June last year, hardly a month into the job, the minister quite rightly made public the report into the Department of Veterans' Affairs claims processing system and pledged to take action to fix the backlog. He said at the time, and I agree, that it simply is not good enough.

In July, the government committed an additional $70.6 million in funding over four years to increase Veterans Home Care fees for domestic assistance and personal care services and also took legislative action to ensure that no veteran would pay higher income tax due to the Douglas decision in the Federal Court. In August, the government committed $22 million in funding to provide psychiatric assistance dogs to veterans living with post-traumatic stress disorder and $33 million to extend access for free medical treatment for veterans. Back in October last year, the government invested $537.5 million in the Department of Veterans' Affairs, including 500 new frontline staff to address the compensation claims backlog and deliver faster decisions for veterans and families; the modernisation of the IT system of the department to improve the claims-processing services; addressing longstanding complexity in the legislative claims regime; providing for better modelling for better future services; 10 more veterans and families hubs; a new Veterans Employment Program; and an increase in the total and permanent incapacitated payments, supporting 27,000 of our most vulnerable. Additionally, in the May budget, the government invested $64.1 million to further eliminate the claims backlog left to this Labor government by the coalition; a further $254.1 million over four years, building on the October budget, to modernise and secure the department's IT systems; half a million dollars, with ongoing funding, to extend the Defence, Veterans and Families Acute Support Package to grandparents who are full-time carers for grandchildren who are children of veterans; and $2 million to continue the mental health literacy and suicide intervention training program.

These measures are, in different ways, part of the government's response to the interim report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, and that work continues. In the last parliament, the member for Burt, as spokesperson, stated plainly:

We have a duty of care for those who have served. This is especially so where that service has had a greater impact on them and their families now and into the future.

Now the minister and the government are walking the walk. I thank the member for Fisher for the chance to outline the significant contrast between the Albanese government's keen interest in and tangible support for our veteran community and the lazy and insufficient care taken by the previous government.

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