Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to say to the minister that, with regard to the fact that the formula has been changed—which will result in a downgrading of the amount of pension paid—even though the saving is, as you put it, ‘small’, to someone who is receiving but a ‘small’ pension, it is large. The fact is that there was an undertaking from your Prime Minister that the buck stops with him. I am making the point that he says that he will not take things away from veterans, but this does in fact take away from veterans.

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

I do not want to engage in an across the table debate on these matters. I would like to say that, so far anyway, the shadow minister and I have been getting on pretty well as we go around the traps, talking to the veterans community. But we have to be careful about putting words in the mouths of others with respect to this. Our commitment was very clearly about doing the right thing by the veterans community. It is a commitment which this budget delivers on because it delivers a record return. If you operated off the legislation as it currently stands, and if that were implemented in total in normal circumstances, you would have a situation where some people’s entitlements would be going up and some would be going down. So it is a bit of swings and roundabouts. The delegates interpreted this as being beneficial, and I welcome the fact that they did that. But that is the reason why we have this here, and again I stress that it is negligible.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just make the point that the savings made indicate that most of it will be down; there will not be too many ups.

Bill agreed to.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.