Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take this opportunity today to expand briefly on several issues of the federal budget that I did not get an opportunity to speak about during the speeches on the appropriations bills, either at the consideration in detail stage or during the second reading debate.

As I said at that time, though, the budget for the veteran community was largely a nonevent. Spending was basically static. Some new money was provided for a number of issues—for example, $20 million for mental health. But, again, that was in the context of a $1.9 billion overall general mental health package, so just over one per cent relates to the veterans community specifically. There was also some funding for the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan, the rebuilding of memorials in France and the carers payment. That, of course, was good news.

I raise a couple of points that were not covered in my earlier contributions. At Senate estimates hearings Labor questioned the government on the $15.5 million in the budget to introduce the new smartcard to DVA. The appearance of the DVA health cards will change, but will retain a unique DVA branding. While there are no concrete details on these changes as yet, the department confirmed that they will be consulting with the veteran community on these changes. I urge the government to make sure that consultation does occur. The gold card is viewed by veterans as being a very important contribution to the wellbeing of veterans. If there are going to be alterations to the use or the appearance of health cards, it needs to be done very sensitively.

Some $10 million in the budget is listed as being for ‘decisions taken but not yet announced’. When questioned by Labor on what this money was for and why the government would not specify to the Australian public what it was doing with $10 million of their money, the Secretary of the DVA finally responded with ‘I am not even going to get into why governments do this. They can’. I guess they can, but the point is that the government needs to make sure that the public knows what is happening with that $10 million. It is a significant amount of money. If decisions have been taken, they need to be made known so that we can be aware of what the public purse is contributing to.

Within the Department of Veterans’ Affairs there are a number of outstanding issues. At the moment we are waiting on the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs to respond to several health studies such as the atomic test veterans health study and the Vietnam veterans cancer incidence and mortality study. The minister will have these reports soon and will consider a joint response across several of the reports at the same time. I would urge action to be taken sooner rather than later. These reports have been around for some time. The issues have been looked into for some time. In some cases the veterans involved are getting to an age where they will not have a long time in the aftermath of the results of these studies. (Time expired)