James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Waste Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

As all speakers have commenced their remarks by doing, can I begin by saying that we all inherently come to debates regarding supporting our veterans hoping to have unanimity and complete bipartisanship in always looking for ways to better provide the support that those who have served our nation are so very much entitled to. They should expect of their government the highest of standards to look after them, not only specific to any issues that come from their service but also more generally.

I acknowledge members of this chamber who have served our nation. The member for Spence and the member for Solomon are here with us at the moment, and obviously there are other members who are not in the chamber. Thank you for your service and thank you for serving in this parliament. Having veterans in this parliament from all sides makes sure we are fulfilling what we're meant to as representatives, which is bringing together so many different perspectives from the community to develop solutions to the challenges facing this country. By having veterans who have been elected to this chamber, and to the other place, that holds us in good stead to ensure we're always taking every opportunity to reform and to do better by people who deserve such great support from their government in acknowledgement of their service to our nation.

I also note that we are but days away from 11 November, a time that we pause as a nation, as so many nations do around the world, at 11 am in whatever time zone you're in. It commenced as an acknowledgement of the Armistice, when the guns fell silent on the Western Front at 11 am on 11 November in 1918. It's something that led to the peace of 1919 and the end of such a dark and terrible chapter for so many young men of this nation and young men of many other nations. It was one of the most awful and horrendous periods of complete butchery. It's something that was called the Great War and was hopefully going to be the last-ever conflict of that scale. Regrettably, it was a mere two decades later that the Second World War commenced.

Nonetheless, the lessons of history are there for us to continue to learn to this day. On 11 November we will pause—happily, the parliament's not sitting, although at times we do, on 11 November. No offence to the importance of this chamber meeting as regularly as possible, but it's so important to be in our communities on days like 11 November, particularly to be with those who have served who are coming to the various ceremonies at the various RSLs. It's a particularly emotional day for people who have served this nation, and we all look forward to the important commemoration that will occur at 11 am on 11 November.

In my own electorate, I reflect on the many RSL clubs that we all engage with in our own electorates. I'd like to acknowledge Mr Don Looker, who I believe is the oldest veteran who lives in my electorate of Sturt. He was in the RAF Bomber Command. He's Australian; he's one of that small cohort that joined up and was sent to the United Kingdom to be part of the RAF efforts in the Battle of Britain. He continued to serve in the air force through the Second World War. Don also happens to be a friend of my family. I've known him for my entire life. We're very lucky that he's still with us. It's times like 11 November and Anzac Day that we reflect on people like Don—we all have people like Don in our electorates—and we think about the great service they gave to our nation.

The Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024 gives us the opportunity to harmonise and improve the way in which we serve our veterans like Don Looker and our newer and emerging generations of veterans who have served this nation and who deserve the highest standards of support from our government. Regrettably, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide laid bare that for a long time we haven't been treating our veterans to the standard they should expect. The worst manifestation of that is suicide, and the horrendous reality that was borne out through the royal commission process was that more service personnel of our nation have died from suicide than have died in combat.

It's just awful to reflect on the fact that people have returned from serving their nation and that support hasn't been there at times. That was definitely brought out in the findings of the royal commission. There are examples of the welfare issues, which come from the lack of appropriate support, that stop short of suicide. In the worst-case examples—and they are all so terrible—manifestation of the lack of appropriate support to veterans is suicide.

The royal commission looked at the bracket of time between 1997 and 2021 and identified nearly 2,000 deaths that they believed could be very clearly attributed to veterans taking their own lives, but probably that figure is more towards 3,000. That's absolutely heartbreaking.

I was in the last parliament when we had a debate about how we could best address the issue of service personnel suicide and veteran suicide. As I said in my opening remarks, it's great to have people that have served our nation in the parliament. I remember the member for Herbert, in particular, was very significantly engaged in that debate, working with then Prime Minister Morrison. Despite the fact that the then government had a model that was talking about more of a permanent commission structure, we landed on the change of heart that saw the royal commission engaged. The first recommendation of the royal commission is to pass this bill and harmonise the way in which supports to veterans are provided.

Other speakers have reflected on the fact that we could have moved a little quicker to bring this bill into the parliament, but I don't cast that as a criticism against the government whatsoever. I'm sure everyone would agree that the most important thing, whenever we look at changes to the way in which we support our veterans, is that we get it right. As members of parliament—I'm sure everyone has similar experiences to me—the sorts of matters that we deal with tend to be about getting it wrong, when the bureaucracy isn't servicing our veterans to the standards that our veterans deserve and should expect. A lot of that is driven by the complexity around the applications process and the very complex set of supports that are in place. At times I find it quite heartbreaking, what we put some people through—unnecessarily, I think—to access the support that they're absolutely entitled to. They should not have so many challenging issues with the labyrinthine way in which we construct access to that support.

All the previous speakers have highlighted that the purpose of this legislation is to bring about that harmonisation, to bring about that very important first recommendation from the royal commission to streamline and simplify the process for accessing support. We need to spend as much money as needs to be spent to support veterans and to give them the entitlements that they absolutely deserve in exchange for the unbelievably significant service that they have given to our nation. This is a demand driven scheme and we should always look for opportunities to improve and enhance access to those that are entitled to the supports that they deserve for the service that they have given to our nation. So we approach this with a great deal of bipartisanship and a great deal of goodwill towards working with the government and supporting the government to do everything that we can, not just to pass this legislation and implement this particular recommendation. Of course, there are lots of other things that still need to be addressed from the royal commission. This is something that we stand very ready to work with the government on. We will support the government to do whatever can be done to implement those recommendations and, in an ongoing way, look for more opportunities wherever we find them to support our veterans in any way, shape or form.

I thank the government for getting this bill into this chamber. I'm assuming that it's the intention to pass it pretty rapidly and to certainly get it through this House this week. With Remembrance Day next week, it's quite timely for us to be doing something that is improving and enhancing the way in which we service those who have given such spectacular service to our nation. With those words, I commend the bill to the House.

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