Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

World War I marked Australia in a way that is almost impossible to fathom in current times—to think that, from a population of less than five million, we raised an army of more than 400,000, of which some 330,000 were deployed overseas. By war's end, over 60,000 had been killed, 5,565 in my own home state of South Australia—put differently, nearly one in five of those deployed overseas. Compared to Australia's modern-day population, that would roughly equate to 250,000 Australians being killed in a world war. Can you imagine the impact this would have on families and communities all over the nation, just as it did back then?

In 1917, the Australian government created the Repatriation Department to help returned veterans resettle in the Australian community. The department introduced programs to assist veterans to develop their vocational skills and find jobs, and it supported their independence through pensions and different schemes, loans et cetera. The soldier settlement scheme was established, and it was administered by the states. As we know, Australian women and men who served in the Australian Defence Force over the next 100 years have quite rightly continued to be supported by the Australian government. This system, as we all know, is governed by the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986, the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004, and their various legislative instruments, which provide different types of entitlements and support to eligible veterans and their dependants.

The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide made the following observations in its interim report, published on 11 August 2022:

The current compensation and rehabilitation system is the product of continuous historical legislative reform involving numerous Acts. Reform to the various veteran entitlement Acts over the last century has often been piecemeal. This has resulted in the continuation of various older entitlements alongside new entitlements, thereby building a multi-layered system. Increasing complexity was the by-product but never the purpose of such reform.

The commissioners outlined how urgent reform to this complex system of legislation was, and again I will quote them:

Australia's veteran compensation and rehabilitation legislative system is so complicated that it adversely affects the mental health of some veterans—serving and ex-serving Australian Defence Force (ADF) members—and can be a contributing factor to suicidality. The Australian Government has known for years that the system requires fundamental reform. Yet it has not acted with speed. There is no justification for further delay. The Australian Government should urgently implement legislative reforms to simplify and harmonise the veteran entitlement system.

Indeed, this legislative reform was the first recommendation of the commissioners: Mr Nick Kaldas APM, the Hon. James Douglas QC and Dr Peggy Brown AO.

I'm proud to be speaking on this bill, and I sincerely hope that the reforms it contains to simplify and harmonise the veteran entitlements system will save the lives of women and men who have worn our nation's uniform. The rate of veteran suicide is a national tragedy, and that's why Labor, in opposition, supported the establishment of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide in opposition. Some three years and thousands of submissions later, the final report has now been delivered to the government. I'd like to thank two of my constituents in particular—Julie-Ann Finney and Angela McKay, who have both lost sons—for their tireless advocacy on behalf of the veterans who have died by suicide and their families and friends. The work and advocacy those two women have done is just incredible. Many of you would know them. They have been up here many times, especially Julie-Ann Finney.

The report is an important body of work which marks the culmination of the most significant and comprehensive inquiry conducted into suicide in the defence and veteran communities. The report is very comprehensive—some 122 recommendations and seven volumes. I know Minister Keogh and his department are working through all of that as soon as practicable, because we do understand the urgency. So many others across the veteran community and families have expressed to me and to all of us that we need to act quickly on these recommendations, and I know the government is working its way through them as quickly as it can so we can produce a government response before the end of the year.

The Albanese Labor government agrees with the need for an oversight body, as recommended by the royal commission. The details, of course, will be considered in the context of the full government response. And I'd like to publicly thank the commissioners for their outstanding work conducting a thorough and compassionate inquiry. I've no doubt that this bill will be one of many positive outcomes that will come as a direct result of their substantial and important work.

In October 2022, Minister Keogh, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, announced the first of three consultation periods and called for public submissions. Feedback from the veteran community overwhelmingly supported the need to simplify and harmonise veterans' compensation legislation. This informed and proposed the pathway to simplify veterans' compensation and rehabilitation legislation. The proposed pathway featured establishing an improved MRCA as the sole ongoing scheme, closing out the VEA and the DRCA to new compensation related claims, and grandparenting all existing arrangements to ensure there is no reduction in entitlements currently or previously received by veterans. In February 2023, we began the public consultation on this proposed pathway, which resulted in the exposure draft of the Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024. Significant consultation was undertaken on this bill in 2024 to make sure that we get it right.

This bill before the parliament does not save the government money. Indeed, the May budget set aside an additional $222 million for veteran and family entitlements across the first two years of operation. I know these public consultations have been keenly followed by veterans and their families, ex-service organisations and necessary service providers to the veteran community.

For the first time in census history, the 2021 census collected data on military service, which has given us greater visibility of where those currently serving live, whereas previously we were only aware of the suburbs where veterans who had already submitted a DVA claim resided. So now we can tell where they live, whereas previously we couldn't. On census night in the federal electorate of Adelaide, my own electorate, there were 3,843 residents, 2.3 per cent of the population of my electorate, who responded that they have previously served or are currently serving.

Many of these residents and their families are represented at regular gatherings of a very fine group of South Australian ex-service organisations who made submissions to the consultation process. The Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024 was the topic of discussion that my last Adelaide Veterans Forum, which I hosted and which included representatives of the RSL South Australia State branch, the Legacy Club of South Australia and Broken Hill, RSL LifeCare, the Vietnam Veterans Association, the Vietnam Veterans' Federation, the Australian War Widows South Australia, the Partners of Veterans Association, the Veterans Wellbeing Centre, the Air Force Association of South Australia, the Far East Strategic Reserve association, the Royal Australian Regiment Association, and representatives of the Kilburn, Unley, Prospect, Hilton, West Croydon and Kilkenny, and Walkerville RSL subbranches, who all do a magnificent job supporting veterans in my electorate.

Naturally, not every veteran and ex-service organisation is in support of every single aspect of this bill. But it's fair to say that the harmonisation of the complex legislative framework has been well received, especially by those groups that I just spoke about and veterans in my electorate. This was the conclusion of the South Australian consortium of ex-service organisations of Australia, who provided a submission on behalf of 18 ex-service and kindred organisations, who were 'broadly supportive' of what has been proposed. I'll take a quick minute to congratulate this group, whose membership organisations have lobbied for legislative harmonisation for many, many years.

We know that this bill will make it easier for veterans and their families to know what they are entitled to, make it easier for veteran claim advocates to assist veterans and families with these claims and make it quicker for DVA to process claims so veterans and their families will be able to get the benefits that they need and deserve in a timely fashion. In addition to these improvements to services for veterans and families in this bill, we've been delivering for veterans in other ways as well. The government's eliminated the veteran compensation claims backlog caused by the previous government's underfunding and underresourcing of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. There was a backlog of some 42,000 veteran compensation claims when we came into government. That has now been cleared, ahead of the deadline set by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans Suicide. Now veterans' claims are with someone for review within 14 days. I know that there's further work being done to speed up the time to process the claims.

After nearly a decade of underfunding and underresourcing, today the DVA is the best funded it's been in three decades, and this government is funding more than 640 additional permanent ongoing staff to get through the backlog and improve service delivery. That's what happens when you have a backlog and you want to get through that service delivery: you employ more people. That's exactly what this government has done—640 additional permanent ongoing staff. We've also delivered on our $24 million Veteran Employment Program to translate veterans skills to the civilian workforce and encourage businesses to both employ and support veterans in civilian workplaces. We've tripled the payment GPs receive in servicing veterans to ensure veterans can keep accessing the care they need. As part of the Housing Australia Future Fund, the government's investing $30 million in housing and wraparound services specifically designed for veterans at risk of or experiencing homelessness. We've also invested $46.2 million to expand access to the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme, giving eligible Defence personnel and veterans an easier pathway to homeownership.

We've implemented the Defence Veterans' and Families' Acute Support Package to provide crisis support to veteran families, including grand-carer families, when they need it. We released the nation's first Veteran Transition Strategy to better support Defence personnel in their transition to civilian life. We've also taken action on all recommendations from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide's interim report. We're delivering 10 additional veterans' and families' hubs in areas of high veteran populations. These are a one stop shop for the veteran communities to access services and support.

The Australian government is absolutely committed to working to ensure that our community provides our newest veterans and their families with the support they require to make the physical and emotional transition to civilian life. It is my hope that they will enjoy the benefits of what they and previous generations of Australian Defence Force personnel have fought and died to preserve. This bill is a much needed update to the work our predecessors started more than 100 years ago to support our returned veterans. This is the very least we can do, and I congratulate the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister Keogh, for his hard work on behalf of those who have worn our nations uniform and their families.

Lest we forget.

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