Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise on this very important bill, the Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Bill 2024. The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide made it abundantly clear that for decades Australia's defence personnel, veterans and their families have not been treated as they should have been. From opposition we fought for this royal commission and as a government we are taking action to improve outcomes for veterans and for their families.

This is why we took swift action when the royal commission released its interim report in August 2022. It highlighted the veterans entitlement system is so complicated that it adversely affects the mental health of some of our veterans. We have taken action on all the recommendations of the report, and this bill will be implementing its first recommendation, which was to simplify and harmonise the veteran rehabilitation and compensation legislation. This was not a small project. I want to commend the Minister for Veterans' Affairs for undertaking this mammoth task of harmonising decades worth of complex legislation. Thanks to the comprehensive consultation that he undertook, I have no doubt this will benefit our current and former service personnel for generations to come.

My electorate of Eden-Monaro is home to many members of our Defence Force, both currently serving and veterans. I've spoken to many of our community members and they have told me that the current veteran compensation system is unnecessarily complicated and difficult to understand. The same complexity has directly contributed to delays, inconsistent processing, uncertain outcomes and claims backlogs which have had a detrimental impact on their mental health and wellbeing.

These aren't new revelations. Calls to address this complexity have been longstanding. That's why I am proud to be part of the Albanese government, who have taken on the challenge to no longer tinker around the edges but to implement meaningful reform. This bill represents the most significant commitment from a government to simplify veteran legislation since the introduction of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act nearly 20 years ago. It will drastically reduce the complexity of the system and ultimately give veterans and families the support that they need much faster.

Under the current legislative model, veterans entitlements are determined under one or more of three primary compensation acts depending on when the veteran served and which periods of service caused or contributed to the condition being claimed. As was recommended by the royal commission, the bill streamlines the number of acts that DVA currently administers from three to one. This will greatly simplify claims processing and give veterans and families the support they need faster.

The bill also makes enhancements to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, including a new payment for severely impaired veterans of pension age, harmonised support for household and attendant care, and improved payments for those travelling for treatment. In addition, a higher funeral reimbursement amount of just over $14,000 will be expanded to all service related deaths, and the funeral allowance for other veteran deaths will increase to $3,000. This bill will also expand gold card eligibility to veterans previously excluded from access.

Ultimately, this legislation will deliver a system that is easier for veterans and families to understand what they're entitled to and enables the DVA to process claims quicker. To ensure that this transition will be smooth, in our most recent budget we included an additional $222 million in funding for veteran and family entitlements and supports to be made available through this new simplified legislation. This builds on a record investment for veterans and their families whilst we have been in government.

Thanks to our investment, DVA is the highest funded it has been in three decades. After a decade of chronic underresourcing and underfunding, the Albanese government has turned that around to ensure that veterans and their families can access the services and supports they need and deserve. In our first budget, we invested more than $233.9 million to engage 500 frontline staff at DVA to eliminate the veteran compensation claims backlog. Thanks to the hard work of those additional staff, that backlog has now been cleared, delivering on our commitment ahead of the deadline that was recommended by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

To ensure we don't see backlogs re-emerge, we also invested an additional $186 million in this year's budget towards the employment of an additional 141 staff. To support these additional staff to process these claims efficiently, we've also budgeted $341.1 million to fund the modernisation and sustainment of the IT systems within the DVA. These investments are making an impact. We've cleared the backlog of claims we inherited from those opposite, and we have significantly reduced the time taken to process claims. Almost all of them are being done within 20 days.

We also committed $46.7 million at the last election to deliver 10 veterans and families hubs across the country so that the thousands of personnel who leave the ADF each year will be able to access support if they need it. The transition to civilian life requires some major readjustments. It's a significant event for defence members and their families, and it can be both a challenging and a traumatic period.

I joined the Minister for Veterans' Affairs at the beginning of the year in my own electorate to announce a $5.4 million grant to develop a new veterans and families hub in Queanbeyan. The hub will be established by RSL LifeCare, working in partnership with RSL New South Wales and other local ex-service organisations to develop the dedicated space to support veterans and their families. With more than 4½ thousand veterans across the Queanbeyan region and more than 22,000 across the ACT region, this hub will be important to ensure veterans and their families across the region can access the services that they need close to home. Doors are expected to open early next year, with RSL LifeCare just last week unveiling the designs for the hub.

As a government, we are committed to continuing to improve the welfare of defence personnel, veterans and their families. The changes proposed by this bill represent the most significant change to the system in decades and represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get the system right for veterans. The royal commission's report was also tabled in this place in September, and, since then, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs has been working hard on how those recommendations can be implemented.

I look forward to continuing to work with defence personnel, veterans and their families right across Eden-Monaro to ensure this change is positive, and I am proud to be part of a government that is so committed to delivering better outcomes for this community.

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