Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018 and support it. It's one that I think is long overdue and one that will make a real difference to the lives of thousands of Australians.

There is no greater honour than to serve your country. The sacrifices that Australian men and women make for our country is truly remarkable. In fact, in some cases, unfortunately, there is the ultimate sacrifice. All too often they are away from their loved ones for long periods of time, missing birthdays, missing anniversaries, missing family gatherings and so on. I would like everybody in the chamber here just to think about that. The reality is they spend a lot of time away from family, missing all these milestones, and it's very hard on both the serving member and, of course, the families and friends. Imagine having to say goodbye to your loved ones—your wife, your husband, your partner, your children, your parents, your friends—every three, six or 12 months, not knowing whether you will actually see them again or whether they will see you. This is a reality. This is what we're asking our men and women in our armed forces and their families to do on a very regular basis.

I certainly proudly served in the Royal Australian Air Force between 1969-1978. I know there are other members in the House that have served a little bit more recently than me, but nevertheless those nine years were very special to me. It was a time that men like me weren't encouraged to talk about our feelings in our time in service. You were simply told to suck it up. Thankfully, the times have very much chained—and so they should. I have to say, however, it was a time in my life I was extremely proud of and have fond memories of, especially of the mateship and the camaraderie during that period of service. But what happens when your mates aren't there anymore 24/7 and you find yourself back in a life that you really don't recognise? It is a far too familiar story for many veterans as they return from active service.

I have to say that active service has changed dramatically over a period of time. If you go back to the early days of the Australian Defence Force, people went on ships to the Boer War, the First World War or the Second World War. They would be away for a year or sometimes longer, and, if they were the lucky ones that returned, that would be it. They would have had their service, whatever that period of time was, and they would settle back into their lives. I remember great-uncles of mine that came back that were gassed in the First World War and the challenges that they had. They had their family with them for the rest of their lives, albeit lives that were cut quite short because of their experience. Going to Vietnam was a different situation again. Those that served in Vietnam went over there generally for six months, a year or two years. It was unusual to do two or three rotations; generally they would do one and they would come back, and that was their service. Again, they were faced with a lot of difficulty, a lot of hardships and a lot of things that people shouldn't have to see, but nevertheless they were home with their families.

In these more modern conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are asking people to go back not just once or twice; they are getting seven or eight rotations. Just imagine how that impacts people. It hardens their thoughts—the things that they see and the most difficult of experiences. I have been fortunate enough to go over to the Middle East and see some of the areas where we sending our troops—the most inhospitable of areas. No level of support while they are over there can really compensate for what they see and what they experience. They come home for short periods of time and then they are back there again. So it is backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. This is bottled up inside them. I have to say that for the time they are there, the comradeship is so important because they are totally relying on their friends to have their back.

Many struggle now when they come back. They did in the past, but it is even more profound now because of the multiple experiences. They really struggle to adjust to normal life. They are unable to get their heads around many of these trivial issues that society is consumed with at the moment, like traffic congestion, petrol prices and who won the footy. These things are really quite irrelevant to them. How could they not be? They witnessed firsthand the brutal horror of war. They feel very much out of sync with society. Many believe that the hardest thing about war is coming home and trying to adjust. Many of them have lost their mates, many were horribly wounded and many have witnessed things that those back home simply could never, ever fathom. Sadly, many come home broken people. Many come home different people. Many simply just don't come home. I see it often. People disappear as far as they can, away from civilisation, to try and come to terms with their experiences. This is where we as a government need to step in and give those veterans and, importantly, their families a helping hand.

This legislation is part of the significant work the Turnbull government is undertaking to make things better for our veterans and their families. I would like to focus on two of the initiatives contained within the legislation. Firstly, the family support aspect. It is a critical aspect that will allow families that are going through a tough time to keep their heads above water. Families and loved ones are often are forgotten and silent victims in all of this, and they deserve the same support that we offer our veterans because in many ways they are also veterans in this experience. They're the ones who have to deal with the stranger, in many cases, who is living under their roof. The measures contained in the legislation recognise the crucial role of family in supporting veterans in transition back to civilian life. The legislation will deliver improved family support to veterans in receipt of an incapacity payment. It will include key psychosocial interventions, such as greater access to child care and counselling, to enable the family unit to maintain its connections to community and employment and also social interaction. More importantly, spouses of veterans who have been killed in recent conflicts or who take their own lives following their service will be eligible for childcare assistance, household services and counselling to assist them to adjust to life after the death of their partner. Under this legislation, they will receive childcare assistance until the children have completed primary education. Importantly, they will also be able to access counselling for a period of up to two years after their partner's death.

The second aspect of this legislation I would like to talk about today is the veteran payment initiative. Approximately 830 veterans and their partners across the country will benefit from this payment in the first year, including those living in my electorate of Leichhardt. Under this legislation, the government will introduce a new income support payment to assist vulnerable veterans until their claim for liability for a mental health condition is fully determined. This payment will allow our veterans early access to financial support and provide them with vocational and psychosocial rehabilitation, including financial counselling and budgeting. This is so very, very important for people coming back and for families identifying that stranger who has come back, who is certainly not the same person who went across to serve, and who are trying to come to terms with their experience. Sometimes there is quite a long gap, and its important that during this process they get some sort of support, because a lot of these experiences are very, very debilitating for those involved. The fortnightly veterans payment of $994 for singles or $774.20 for each member of a couple will provide a source of income—relatively modest but, nevertheless, a source of income—that they can access until their claim is determined and ongoing support is arranged. In addition, eligible veterans will be able to receive rent assistance of $133 per fortnight. Those with dependent children will receive family tax benefit from the Department of Human Services without having to satisfy the means test applying to those payments. Again, it is very important that we have this support accessed very quickly and without complexity, because they are already dealing with a lot of challenges within their own home. It's my belief that these payments are particularly important, because they give our veterans and their families a financial security while they deal with more important and pressing issues. The last thing these families need at this time is to deal with bureaucracy.

Mahatma Gandhi once said that the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members. Not a truer word has been spoken, and it's extremely relevant when we are talking about those Australian men and women who have bravely served our country and might need little help when they come home. I commend this bill to the House.

Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are some things which I strongly believe shouldn't become tools for political games. I believe that veterans affairs is one of those things. The lives and livelihoods of those good people who have served our country are worth far more than a few points on the political scoreboard, so I'm very happy to support the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018 in the House today.

As the member for Longman, I am really fortunate to represent a very large and strong community of veterans, veterans who have served across a number of wars and conflicts. Some have returned recently, of course, and many of them have made their homes in places like Narangba. Others have already spent many years at home and lived as civilians right across in Longman with a very large group of those civilians living in Bribie Island. I think it is incredibly important then that we support those brave men and women whenever we can. There are already some incredible services available to the veterans who live in Longman and call Longman their home, like Remembrance House in Burpengary. I have visited there many times. I remember just last year on Anzac Day I was fortunate enough to be invited with the veterans to have a gunfire breakfast immediately after the ceremony. But I also visited there last year with shadow minister for defence, Richard Marles, and we had a long and in-depth conversation with both our Vietnam veterans and some of our newer veterans who live nearby in Narangba. We have other great services like the RSL club and its sub-branches at Bribie, Beachmere, Caboolture-Morayfield. But these services can only provide so much assistance. It is really the role of parliament to support those who put their lives on hold and go and serve our nation. We have a duty of care to uphold.

This bill comprises of eight schedules that were mostly recommended by the Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel. Labor believes that one suicide is one life lost too many. So we supported, of course, the establishment of this inquiry to explore the issues faced by our returned Defence personnel. Disappointingly, this was an inquiry that the coalition opposed. I say 'disappointingly' because I don't know how any government member could be against finding out why so many of our returned servicemen and women have tragically taken their own lives. I don't know why anyone would stand in the way of that inquiry, which could and actually did find solutions to this deeply saddening issue.

This bill is proof just how valuable that inquiry was. It is proof that the experiences of individuals and interested organisations collated in over 400 submissions helped shape this very, very important legislation. Over the year that inquiry ran, a number of issues were highlighted, and I will pick up just three: the impact of financial stresses; the adversarial and lengthy claims processes; and the lack of support for the partners of our veterans. Of the 24 recommendations made by this inquiry, the bill seeks to address two main areas. They are the interim incapacity payments for mental health and greater support for our veterans' families. Labor has been actively pursuing greater support for families for some time, so it is very, very welcome to see this featured in this bill.

Schedule 1 of the bill seeks to provide additional support for the families of current, former and deceased members of the Defence Force by providing additional childcare arrangements, counselling, household services and, of course, attendant care. The additional childcare assistance will see families eligible for up to $10,000 each year to cover the cost of child care and before- and after-school care. So it is pleasing to see the government taking on these initial steps and heres hoping they maintain that momentum. And I urge the government to consider a number of initiatives such as Labor's family engagement and support strategy for Defence personnel and veterans, which goes a little further than this because that strategy actually will provide a national blueprint to include engagement of DVA and Defence with military families. This strategy will ensure that those who serve and their families will have access to the best practice support consistently available right across our country.

I would also like to flag schedule 2 of this bill, which I strongly support. Schedule 2 of this bill goes to those people who are waiting for their mental health claims to be determined. Schedule 2 establishes a veterans' payment. Acting as an interim income support payment, the veteran payment has been established in response to the outcomes of the Senate inquiry into the tragic suicide of Afghan war veteran Jesse Bird. Jesse Bird, a soldier and combat veteran, died last year after losing a claim for a permanent impairment that he had been pursuing for almost two years. Jesse Bird had warned the Department of Veterans' Affairs that he was suicidal. He had warned them he was under severe financial stress. When soldier Jesse Bird died he had just $5.20 left in his bank account. I welcome schedule 2 of this bill, because this veteran payment will seek to ensure that a tragedy like the death of Jesse Bird doesn't happen again.

As a form of interim income support payment that is available between lodging a mental health claim and then the claim being determined, the applicant is entitled to a basic rate of $913, or $713 if they are a partnered person. In addition to this, a person may also be eligible for a pension supplement, rent assistance, family tax benefit and a remote area allowance. These payments are subject to satisfying an asset and income test and, importantly, also require the applicant to engage in vocational and psychosocial rehabilitation, including some financial counselling. Veterans' partners may also be eligible for this payment, and the payments will continue to be provided in the circumstances where both the veteran and their partner are receiving a payment and the veteran subsequently passes away.

I stand with Labor in strongly supporting any measures that assist individuals struggling with mental health injuries. As I mentioned, in the electorate of Longman, which I represent, just north of Brisbane, we have an incredibly large veteran population. The electorate also has a very large number of people living with mental health injuries, and I understand from speaking with many of these residents who live in my local area just how difficult day-to-day life can be for these wonderful people. I understand through conversations with them just how heavily financial security can play on their mind. When you're already dealing with problems of your own, the added stress caused by finances is a burden that simply is not needed.

It's worth noting that if a member's claim is not accepted the Department of Veterans' Affairs will support the individual with another form of income support to ensure the veteran isn't left without a plan or without any support. It's anticipated that the veteran payment will benefit approximately 1,500 veterans and their partners in the 2017-2018 year. So, if just by standing here and supporting this bill my parliamentary colleagues and I can help alleviate just some of the pain of 1,500 returned service men and women and their partners, then I wholeheartedly support this measure.

I will move to schedule 3 of this bill, which also deals with mental health support, amending the MRCA and the Veterans' Entitlements Act to create a new pilot program to improve the mental health support that's available in rural and regional areas. Rural and regional areas, which are incredibly important to our country, are where a lot of our veterans have decided to make their home. Building upon the existing Coordinated Veteran's Care Program, which uses a team based model of care led by a GP, the Coordinated Veterans' Care Mental Health Pilot will see the GP access and diagnose clients, undertake care planning and refer clients to use an app on a smart device. This program will target veterans with mild to moderate conditions, such as anxiety or depression, who also have a physical condition that requires some form of pain management. It's expected the program will recruit up to about 125 people each year over the two years. I welcome this. I hope to see a really tangible outcome from this pilot when it reaches Longman in the very near future.

In closing, I'd like to express my support for schedule 5 of this bill. This will be the first legislative instrument to support the implementation of veteran-centric reform. It's designed to help ease the transition process for veterans, of course—who wouldn't support a reform that eases the pathway that veterans will go through after returning from their work and their time in the Defence Force?

It seeks to amend the Veterans' Entitlements Act as it relates to a claim for a qualifying service, creating an additional way for a determination to be made. It enables the automation of a qualifying service determination primarily based upon the information that's provided by the Department of Defence—in essence, removing a step in what could be a very lengthy process that veterans have to go through to make an application for a benefit or a payment. Of course, this won't alter the right for a veteran to make a manual application themselves at any time; it just smooths that process for them and improves the existing process provided to veterans with another option that should make things easier and should take another stress out of their lives. Who wouldn't welcome and encourage this process?

I'm sure I'm no different to other members in the House: my office hears, time and time again, from constituents about how difficult claims can sometimes be and the stress that it causes when they're trying to move through the system to access an entitlement. People who are already vulnerable and people who might be at the end of their tether are applying for Newstart, the aged pension or the disability support pension. They've explained to me quite often that the bureaucratic process can be all too much at the time of crisis—it really can be. Even something as simple as smoothing out the process by way of automation, as is sought to be achieved in schedule 5 of this bill, can make a huge difference in someone's life when they are in a very, very vulnerable state. I can totally empathise with anyone who would be concerned about allowing government to bring automation into the claims process for veterans, but, by allowing the veterans the ability to manually process a claim, as they can now if they choose, provides at least some solace that this will help and not hinder the claims process.

I will, of course, support anything that makes claims processes easier for our veterans. I have huge communities in places like Bribie Island and brand-new families are establishing themselves in places like Narangba, so the announcement of $10,000 regarding child care is most welcome. But, along with the rest of Labor, I will take all due care and caution to ensure that all steps are taken by parliament to ensure support for those who have served and those who will serve in the future.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also wish to speak on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-Centric Reforms No 1) Bill 2018. I'd like to start by acknowledging the people who are the reason we are debating this issue today: the veterans and their families. Whenever and wherever our veterans serve in the Australian armed forces, they do so in order to protect this country and its people. They've always put their country first. We know that when they've come home, whether it's to the suburbs of Sydney, the outback in Western Australia or my electorate of La Trobe—and we have so many veterans—the support our veterans have needed and benefitted from the most has been provided by their families. The veterans are, of course, always supported by their families. We also know that members of veteran families, whether they are partners, children, parents, siblings or close friends, have made a huge sacrifice while the service men or women are away, because they miss so many occasions, such as birthdays, school events, Christmases and special family celebrations. On behalf of the government, we thank the veterans and their families for what they have done for our country and what they have given up.

We also know that, all too often, sacrifices continue in other ways when veterans return, so I commend the government for seeking to implement a number of specific initiatives which are a response to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee report entitled The constant battle: suicide by veterans, which was tabled in parliament last year. I thank the members of that committee. Arising from this report, the government is providing an additional $31 million to support veterans' mental health on top of the $58.6 million that was provided in last year's budget for veterans' mental health. When it comes to veterans, money will never go far enough for what they have done. I also recognise that the opposition members are supporting the government with this bill.

I applaud the measures that are proposed in this amendment bill and I'm particularly interested in the inclusions that relate to additional family support for veterans. These are matters—especially the child care—that have been raised with me directly by affected constituents in my electorate of La Trobe. Over the years, I have heard firsthand from veterans about the impact that their combat experience has had on their mental health. I also must say that a number of veterans over the years have had major issues with the DVA in my electorate. My staff always have a door open for our veterans, and we say, 'Let us go and fight these issues for you when you have issues with the DVA, as you have already fought for our country.'

So I'm pleased to see that this bill introduces a number of new income support payments for veterans who are unable to work for this reason and who have consequently lodged a compensation claim. When you meet these people, it becomes very apparent that it is very difficult for them, after being in a high-stakes environment where their life can be on the line every day, to come back to mundane work and life in Australia. It is a very difficult transition process. The bill will ensure that, if they are financially vulnerable, they can receive immediate financial assistance while their claims are being assessed.

In July last year Berwick resident Julie Anderson—I've met with Julie so many times over the years—wrote to me and pointed out a very concerning fact: 'Only five more veterans have to end their lives this year and that will be equal to those killed fighting the enemy in Afghanistan in over 10 years.' Julie makes the sad and relevant point that it's after their efforts, after their service to Australia, when they come back home, that the mental battle really begins within them. Julie has been involved in the social media campaign entitled Not One More, and she referred to a suicide epidemic of our young veterans, which, sadly, is true. She also said 99.9 per cent of our taxpayers want to know that our vets are looked after, but over the past ten years very little headway has been made to reduce waiting times in suicide prevention despite huge increases in budget.

When I met with the wives of two local veterans, they described the daily challenges of looking after children whilst caring for their badly incapacitated husbands. One of them, whose name is Lyn, said: 'Transitioning out of Defence in any capacity is leaving veterans vulnerable. Medically discharged veterans are often left for months to end with living off $600 per week with no consideration for the size of their family.' So it is heartening to see that the bill will deliver improved family support to veterans who are in receipt of incapacity payments, and that includes greater access to child care—I believe the amount would be up to $10,000 per year—and counselling to enable the family unit to maintain a normal life with connections to community, employment and social interaction that other people are able to take for granted.

As I said before, when veterans return to so-called normal life in Australia, it is very hard to adapt, for the family and children especially. For those spouses who pay the highest price of all, with the tragic loss of a veteran through death in recent conflict or through suicide, I believe it is most appropriate that spouses should be eligible for household services and counselling to assist them with adjusting to life after the tragic death of their partner. I believe that the period of two years of service that is offered under this bill is a great start; however, I firmly believe we should not be putting such a relatively brief time limit on trauma and that in fact services should be extended to five years. This is something I've mentioned to my colleagues in the government.

This view arises from the opinions expressed to me by a number of RSL representatives, in particular Alan Ashmore from La Trobe. I have known Alan to be an amazing ambassador for veterans over the years. He is himself a Vietnam veteran. He has been a tireless campaigner for veterans' rights for nearly 40 years. I think Alan was probably one of my first meetings in my office in 2004. Recently, Alan said:

Only last weekend I met up by accident with the former wife of one of my best mates whom I was in Vietnam with but suffered badly with PTSD on his return. Mentally and physically he was one of the three toughest men I have ever met but has been a mess since his return from Vietnam. It took him 14 years to get his TPI—

which is an absolute tragedy—

It destroyed his marriage and the mental health of his two daughters who still spend periods of time as in-patients in a mental hospital. If it wasn't for their faith and supportive network I doubt if the daughters would still be with us.

Alan finished by saying:

I mention this as I believe close to one million Australians are affected by their war service or as a close family member.

I believe that these changes cannot come soon enough, and therefore I join with my colleagues in commending this bill to the House. With these tragedies, it should have come in so many years earlier.

Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our ADF personnel put their lives on hold in service of our country. They take risks, make sacrifices and commit their lives and wellbeing to the Defence Force. For this reason and many others I'm very pleased that Labor is supporting the bill that we currently have before the House. The Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018 comprises eight schedules, several of which address recommendations that came out of the Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel.

We know that for some former ADF personnel their service may have a greater impact on them. In these circumstances, we have a duty of care to ensure that both they and their families receive the support that they need to live full and productive lives. Unfortunately, it is a sad fact that former members of the ADF are battling rates of suicide higher than the general population. A report released last year by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in collaboration with the Department of Veterans' Affairs found, for example, that men who are no longer serving were 14 per cent more likely than the general population to take their own lives. Further, that figure is higher still for young males between the ages of 18 and 24, who are twice as likely to die by suicide as people not in the ADF.

My electorate of Bass is home to the Launceston RSL ADF Welfare Team, the first of its type in Australia, which was set up by Nadia Titley, the Launceston RSL sub-branch secretary. Nadia recognised a gap in services when she saw ADF members becoming homeless and suicidal. The team is run out of the Launceston RSL sub-branch and staffed by accredited volunteers, mostly ex-service men and women with personal experience of military life and an increased understanding of some of the issues that veterans face in their day-to-day lives.

The aim of the Launceston RSL ADF Welfare Team is to catch veterans before they reach a crisis stage. They do this by providing a friendly ear, assistance and referrals as required, including providing them with essentials like food, housing, clothing, bedding, furniture, toiletries, financial support and health and wellbeing. Indeed, in a recent conversation with Nadia about the work of the Launceston RSL ADF Welfare Team, she emphasised to me that when some of our young veterans leave service they simply don't know how to deal with the day-to-day living activities that we experience. They don't know, for example, how to negotiate a lease for a rental property. They don't know what it's like to go to a supermarket and, for example, use a self-service facility. They're used to the all-encompassing embrace of the ADF, which is a good thing during their service but means that when they leave the service they are exposed to extreme change. Indeed, the veteran community in Launceston and in Northern Tasmania is very well served, and there are several groups and organisations supporting former ADF personnel through their transition back to civilian life and beyond, however difficult that may be.

Another organisation is Misha's Mates. This is an organisation started by a local Tasmanian veteran, Craig, who served in the ADF for 13 years with five operational deployments throughout Afghanistan and Timor-Leste. Craig knew that many of his colleagues from the ADF and other veterans were struggling with PTSD in the same way he had been, often with very serious consequences. However, the presence of his service dog, Misha, meant that he continued to make positive steps forward, including returning to study at TAFE and later university. Craig drew on his personal experience and started Misha's Mates, which supports veterans to select, test and train their own service dogs through an e-learning portal.

I must always recognise the tireless work of other local groups in this space, such as the Tasmanian branch of the Vietnam Veterans' Association of Australia and Launceston Legacy. The care and support provided to our veteran community and their families in northern Tasmania is to be commended, despite the ever-growing demand on these types of services in the face of worsening suicide rates and, of course, an overburdened Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Labor believe that one suicide is one too many, and for this reason we supported the establishment of the Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel as a way to explore the issues facing our ex-service men and women. The inquiry took almost a year to complete and received over 400 submissions. These submissions detailed the experience of individuals and interested organisations and suggested ways that we could improve outcomes for our veterans and their families. I note that the executive summary of the report by the Senate inquiry states that it was 'a very large and complex inquiry with terms of reference which could easily have taken multiple reports to cover'.

A number of issues were highlighted throughout the inquiry. These are the same issues that constituents raise with me time and time again in relation to their dealings with DVA, specifically the impact of financial stressors, the adversarial and lengthy claims process and a lack of support for partners of veterans. The report made 24 recommendations, two of which are addressed in this bill by establishing an interim incapacity payment for mental health in particular and increasing support for families.

In direct response to recommendation 19 of the Senate inquiry, schedule 1 seeks to provide additional support for current and former members and for families of current and former members, including deceased members, by providing additional childcare arrangements, counselling, household services and attendant care.

Schedule 2 establishes the veteran payment, which is an interim income support payment for those waiting for their mental health claims to be determined. It seems to me, in the light of what I have outlined with respect to the particular problems faced by the veterans community, extremely unfortunate that, up until this very welcome change, those who are most exposed by their mental illness might be without income and support. Clearly that was a gap that needed to be addressed, and I congratulate the government for addressing that.

This payment will be available between lodging a claim for mental health injury and the claim being determined, to assist vulnerable persons who may be in financial difficulty. Importantly, the payment will require that a person receiving this payment must participate in vocational and psychosocial rehabilitation. Labor strongly supports measures which provide vulnerable veterans and their families with assistance and support, particularly during difficult times. For individuals struggling with mental health injuries, financial security will play very heavily on their mind. These payments will take some of that burden off the individual and their families whilst they receive the care and support they need to recover.

Schedule 3 amends the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, the MRCA, and the Veterans' Entitlements Act, the VEA, to create a new pilot program to improve mental health support which is available in rural and regional areas. The Coordinated Veterans' Care Mental Health Pilot will build on the existing Coordinated Veterans' Care Program, which uses a team based model of care led by a GP and is supported by a practice nurse. It will be targeted to veterans with mild to moderate mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression who also have a physical condition requiring pain management. It will recruit up to 125 people each year over two years, with the aim to provide support to veterans in rural and regional areas. Access to support for mental health conditions in rural and regional areas has been an issue of ongoing concern for veterans and their loved ones. Labor is supportive of changes that seek to address some of these concerns.

Schedule 4 will amend the existing provisions relating to compensation for household and attendant care services where an ADF member suffers a catastrophic injury or disease under the MRCA. The new provisions will enable the commission to specify the conditions for the purpose of the definition of catastrophic injury. Currently, this assistance is provided via an exceptional circumstances determination. This change will remove this requirement, thereby minimising any delay in the provision of support. As I said earlier, Labor is supportive of changes which will streamline processes for individuals, particularly in these circumstances, where an individual has suffered a catastrophic injury. We have an obligation to ensure the processes employed in this area are straightforward for these individuals and their loved ones.

Schedule 5 is the first legislative amendment supporting the implementation of the Veteran Centric Reform and is part of a broader improvement strategy designed to ease the transition process for veterans. This amendment seeks to amend the VEA as it relates to a claim for qualifying service. This amendment will create an additional way for a qualifying determination to be made. Essentially, veterans will no longer have to go through a process which they find most frustrating to prove their service. Rather than qualifying, service determination will be automated and will primarily be based upon information the Department of Defence provides to DVA. As to why this hadn't been implemented earlier, I do not know. Imagine the frustration for somebody to come to me in my former practice as a lawyer and provide a whole lot of service information and say, 'Why hasn't Defence provided this to the Department of Veterans' Affairs?' This is a very welcome change. Labor will monitor the reforms to ensure that they deliver the desired outcomes and they don't chip away at veterans entitlements.

Schedule 6 makes a number of technical amendments to the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act which will remove redundant references to Comcare and other bodies and repeal provisions not presently related to providing compensation and rehabilitation to current and former ADF members and eligible persons. I understand that these changes will have no impact on the individual. These amendments seek only to remove redundant references given the Defence specific nature of the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act, the DRCA. I'm happy to support any measure that simplifies the complex legislative framework which exists for current and ex-serving defence personnel as long as it doesn't reduce veterans entitlements.

Schedule 7 makes a number of consequential amendments related to the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Omnibus) Act 2017. A number of references are made to 'the council', which will now change to 'the review council' to make it clear that these references relate to the Specialist Medical Review Council, which was introduced by that act.

Schedule 8 makes a number of amendments. The first is to the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Test and British Commonwealth Occupation Force (Treatment) Act 2006 to enable a person who is a member of the ADF and served in Japan at any time during 16 August 1945 to the end of 30 January 1946 to be eligible for the gold card. I understand that, in previous legislation before the House last year, there was an error and a person or persons were omitted that needed to be added to eligibility. Given that those individuals were exposed to the same conditions as those who served as part of the British Commonwealth Occupational Force, it is entirely appropriate that they receive the same care and support extended to members of the BCOF, as acknowledged last year. The second change is to the VEA to align the pension age in the VEA with the DRCA and the MRCA. Currently, the pension age as prescribed in the VEA is 65. This will now be changed to state 'pension age', meaning, as the pension age increases, the act will reflect this and not leave individuals with a gap in support.

As I indicated earlier, Labor is broadly supportive of the amendments proposed in this legislation, in particular those which address recommendations from the Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel. Of the 24 recommendations made by the Senate inquiry, the government accepted 22 and two more in principle. I'm very pleased to see action being taken to ensure that these changes are implemented.

As you will be aware, Deputy Speaker, the area of veterans' affairs is very much an area where bipartisanship should apply, and it's something we should celebrate where the government makes a positive move. It's very important for members in this place to recognise that we owe a debt of gratitude to ex-service personnel, and that debt of gratitude is not simply repaid by platitudes expressed in this place. We need action, and we need to heed the expert evidence that's presented to Senate inquiries and the feedback that comes from RSLs and ex-personnel representative organisations.

Labor will continue to monitor the implementation of the other recommendations to ensure that they are delivered in a timely manner and that the gaps highlighted through the Senate process are addressed. As I've said previously, our current and ex serving Defence personnel put their lives on hold in service to our country. They deserve our unwavering support, now and into the future.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since my election to parliament, I've had the honour of meeting a great many current and former members of the ADF. In July last year, I travelled, with members opposite, to the Middle East to take part in the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. We spent eight days embedded with the men and women of the ADF, and I had the opportunity to speak to them about the challenges that they face and their expectations for their lives after service.

I've also spoken at RSLs all over Fisher, including at the Caloundra RSL AGM. I've met with veterans' groups and encountered many current and former service men and women through my Fisher defence industry initiative. I've even had the privilege of meeting one of my constituents who is a veteran of the Voyager disaster, the famous Bernie Verwayen, who every law student would be aware of in the matter of estoppel. I have gone out of my way to meet with as many current and former service men and women as I can, because I am passionate about helping to drive change in this area.

As the Prime Minister said just a few weeks ago, we best honour the diggers of 1918 by supporting the service men and women, the families and veterans of 2018. That's why I chose to focus on the treatment of PTSD when I was asked to travel to Sweden, the UK, Canada and the Netherlands by the government last year. During that trip I met with doctors, mental health practitioners, armed forces and government veterans' agencies in those countries, to learn about best practice in resolving the mental health problems which can be caused by serving in the military. These included the departments of national defence and veterans' affairs in Canada, and the Swedish armed forces department of veterans' affairs. I've sought, since that trip, to bring these lessons to my discussions with our government, and I thank successive ministers for their ongoing engagement with me around some of these ideas.

The veterans and the service men and women I have met have been passionate, as I am, about ensuring their ongoing welfare. They, like me, want to see people who have served get the support they need to build successful and fulfilling civilian lives. They want to see more support for dealing with the sometimes, or often, harmful impacts of service on their physical and mental health, and they want to see a Department of Veterans' Affairs that is focused on them and their families and their needs. They don't want to see a combative DVA that fights them on every front from the day that they leave their service.

In achieving better outcomes for veterans, the role of community organisations will be vital. There are around 17,000 veterans living on the Sunshine Coast, and our community comes together to provide what support we can. In Fisher, we have very active RSL sub-branches at Caloundra; Beerwah and district; Kawana Waters; Glasshouse Country, of which I am the patron; and Maleny. We also have other organisations, such as the Young Veterans Sunshine Coast group and a Diggers Rest that recently received a Stronger Communities grant just last week.

However, in the end, it is sometimes our sober responsibility as parliamentarians to send Australian service men and women into harm's way. It is also our responsibility to care for them and their families when they return and, unfortunately, in some instances, when they don't. I know that no-one has taken that responsibility more seriously than the former Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the new Minister for Social Services. The minister's record of delivery for veterans stands as a testament to his commitment and his dedication to looking after our ADF personnel. Two commitments in particular stand out from the then-minister's list of achievements: the 2017 budget's provision of $350 million in extra investment for veterans, and the October 2017 government response to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee report, The constant battle: suicide by veterans. This bill is about enacting some of the critical measures involved in those two landmark policies. Under the then-minister and under his equally committed successor, the Deputy Prime Minister, the government is already delivering more than $11 billion to veterans and their families every year. There are 291,000 veterans and family members who currently receive government support, and 48 per cent of them are women.

In the areas that are most important to veterans, the Turnbull government has been particularly active. When it comes to the transition to civilian life, the government laid the foundations for improvement in January 2016 when we reformed regulations such that the Department of Defence can inform the DVA directly when a serving member has become a veteran. This ensures that more veterans can receive much earlier engagement and begin their path to a successful transition to civilian life. In the 2017 budget the government invested $2.7 million for the Prime Minister's Veterans' Employment Program. This money is being used the help businesses understand the unique skills and attitudes ADF members have developed during their service through supporting the industry advisory committee, through creating an ex-service organisation industry partnership register and through the first annual Prime Minister's Veterans' Employment Awards. This program, importantly, also includes the spouses of veterans, who often endure the employment consequences of their partner's service. The government further invested $9.1 million in the 2017 budget for accelerated access to rehabilitation services, streamlined access to incapacity payments and improved access to the totally and permanently incapacitated disability pension for veterans working past the age of 65. In December 2017, Minister Tehan announced almost $1 million allocated to 12 organisations to deliver targeted programs to help the transition process and employment prospects for young veterans.

However, the minister knows that funding is most effective when partnered with meaningful reform. That is why he announced in the same month that the Turnbull government had ensured that every service man and woman would be guaranteed access to the personal documentation they need to claim support from government agencies in civilian life before they are discharged. This includes: an individual transition plan; a record of professional military education and training; unit posting and employment history; final entitlement summaries; and copies of medical and dental records. It's also why Minister Tehan oversaw the passing of the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Omnibus) Bill 2017, which helped government departments to speak to each other to ensure that veterans' superannuation benefits assessments can be processed more quickly. It improved the working of the Specialist Medical Review Council, allowed for greater delegation and ensured that the department can respond flexibly to changing circumstances. This was partnered with more investment in the form of an unprecedented additional $166.6 million toward modernising the DVA. This will improve computer systems and it will cut transition processing times dramatically. We have also implemented a trial of alternative dispute resolution for veterans who choose to appeal a decision of the Veterans' Review Board. This is already resolving cases that used to take a year in as little as three months.

There is more to be done, and in this bill are measures to make that transition earlier. In particular, schedule 5 allows the Department of Defence to provide information on qualifying service to the DVA in an automated, qualifying service determination. This will remove an administrative step for veterans to speed up their access to entitlements and reduce unnecessary transition stress. This is only the beginning of the veteran-centric reform package that the government will introduce, but it is an important first stage. When it comes to veterans' mental health, I believe that no government has ever demonstrated greater drive and focus on the issue than this coalition government.

Under Minister Tehan, the 2016 budget made treatment for depression, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, drug and alcohol misuse free for anyone who had served even just one day in the full-time ADF. The 2017 budget went further for veterans, including an extra $33.5 million to extend that coverage to all mental health conditions, without a need to prove that the condition is related to their service and without a cap on funding. All veterans with a mental health condition have access to the Veterans and Veterans' Families Counselling Service, the VVCS. In 2017, once again, the minister and this government secured $8.5 million to extend VVCS to all current partners and children of veterans as well as some former partners. More recently, more than $640,000 is being provided to community groups, supporting veterans under the latest round of the Veteran and Community Grants Program adding to the $800,000 delivered under Round 1. These grants provide support for some of the simple things that can make all the difference to veterans' mental health, like bus trips to reduce social isolation, computer equipment, equipment for Men's Sheds or the refurbishment of RSL facilities.

This bill delivers on critical additional measures announced by Minister Tehan in the government's response to the Senate inquiry in October which need the support of this House and the other place. The government committed $9.8 million last year to pilot new approaches to suicide prevention and improve care and support available to veterans. These included the coordinated veterans care mental health pilot, which is the subject of schedule 3 of the bill. This health pilot will incorporate new technologies to provide specialist, light-touch, cognitive therapy, critically, in rural and regional Australia.

In October 2017, Minister Tehan also announced a further $31 million to support veterans' mental health as part of the government's response to the Senate inquiry into veteran suicide. Portions of this investment will go to a new veteran payment which forms schedule 2 to the bill for financially vulnerable veterans with a mental health condition. It will also support an annual check for ex-serving ADF members for the first five years after discharge, and a pilot of a new case management service for transitioning veterans among other projects.

This government understands its responsibilities to our veterans. It has listened to the voices of 300,000 former ADF personnel and their families and is doing all that it can to honour their service and their sacrifice. The government understands that doing right by our veterans will take investment, and also knows that it requires fundamental reform. Minister Tehan delivered a great deal for ex-service personnel, and this bill is part of the current minister's vigorous pursuit of the same.

I would like to join with the remarks of the previous speaker, specifically in the importance of bipartisanship in any issues involving veterans. We, as members of parliament, as I mentioned earlier, have a course, unfortunately, to send our men and women overseas. We have a responsibility to ensure that we look after them when they return and that responsibility falls on every single one of us in this place. There is perhaps no greater priority for us as parliamentarians than to work together in a bipartisan manner to bring that into effect. I congratulate the shadow minister and those opposite for the bipartisan approach that they take in relation to this portfolio. It's a worthy and honourable thing for them to do in this case. It is unfortunate that we don't get that on all issues, but there is no issue more important than this.

The process of investment and reform is ongoing. I know that the government will continue to work with the transition taskforce and others to do more. I look forward to contributing to that important work with the future minister for veterans affairs when he or she is appointed. In the meantime, this bill is a vital part of our pragmatic consultation-driven changes, and I commend the bill to the House.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has presented the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018, which is intended to deliver a range of services to veterans and their families. It is a positive move. Even the name indicates a change of attitude and a change of approach. I obviously welcome a veteran-centric approach. The more the focus is on veterans and their families and their needs, the better.

The minister summarised the main points of the bill in his second reading speech when he introduced the bill. I congratulate the current minister on his promotion to Deputy Prime Minister, and I hope that the next veterans affairs minister has a deep understanding of and is passionately focused on the important work of this portfolio. I wish to recognise the good work of the government with bipartisan support in changing the approach of veterans services so as to make those services more appropriate to the needs of veterans, to make them empathetic, more caring and less adversarial. I believe this bill goes some way towards that aim, but there is obviously a lot more work still to be done. The minister pointed out that there are more than 300,000 Australians who have served in our defence forces in peace and war. Each year, more than 5,000 of those will leave the services, and they and their families need and deserve our support as they transition to civilian life and move on to the next stage of their lives. I hope the minister is correct in saying that the measures in this bill will assist our ex-service personnel and also their families. On that basis, Labor supports the bill, and I support the detailed response by the member for Kingston, the shadow minister for veterans affairs, in her speech on second reading debate. I acknowledge the acknowledgement by the previous speaker, the member for Leichhardt, of the shadow minister, because she is doing a fantastic job. She spoke well in her speech on those issues that we have identified in a bipartisan way.

This bill addresses two of the recommendations of the inquiry by the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel by establishing an interim incapacity payment for mental health and by increasing support for families. Families are absolutely crucial in supporting our current and ex-service personnel, and Labor is committed, if elected, to developing a family engagement and support strategy for defence personnel and veterans. As an ex-serviceman myself, I am very conscious of the challenges faced by many of our veterans. I was recently privileged to host a veterans forum in my electorate of Solomon, where I heard firsthand accounts of the concerns of many of the veterans about the difficulties they face in the transition to civilian life. In Solomon there are over 2,000 veterans, and I want to make sure that they have the best possible care and support. The shadow minister for veterans affairs came up to Darwin for that veterans forum and addressed the gathering. She took note of the issues faced by veterans and their families in the Top End. However, I must point out that, in the same week, the current minister was in Darwin to attend the commemorations of the bombing of Darwin, which was great, but, as well as remembering the fallen, it would have been great if the current minister had held a forum himself, perhaps to hear from veterans firsthand about the challenges that they face.

I will note some of the main provisions of the bill which I believe are of particular interest to veterans in Solomon, and I'll be making that information available to them now that this bill is before the House. We know that family support is crucial to veterans, and I wish to acknowledge the support often given in difficult circumstances by parents and partners. They are the glue that often keeps veterans and the families together. Even if it's a single member of the forces without their own immediate family, of course their extended family is incredibly important. This is particularly important in the treatment or recovery of ill or injured veterans.

This bill will provide greater access to child care, additional home care and counselling and will help families maintain connection to community and employment. This is obviously welcome. The bill recognises partners who have to care for a severely incapacitated veteran in addition to their own employment and home duties. They will receive help to develop their skills in caring for a veteran with physical or mental injuries and identifying when people may be at risk of self-harm or causing harm to others.

Three particular services included in the bill are increased childcare assistance to veterans who receive incap payments and have served in recent overseas conflicts and to the partners of veterans who have served in a recent conflict and have died either as a result of the conflict or by suicide; extending intervention counselling for up to five years post discharge for veterans with a rehab plan, their partners and their families; and childcare, home care assistance and counselling for up to five years post discharge for partners and families of veterans who have died either as a result of the conflict or by suicide. I, like all members, am obviously seriously concerned about suicide by our veterans. One is too many, and we've had a lot. I cannot imagine the pain and sense of hopelessness which precedes such an act of terrible finality, and the suffering of partners, family and friends that are left behind. I've spoken with many.

When I spoke in this parliament about the government's response to the recent Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel, I welcomed the report and the government's positive response. I recognised the good work of the members of the committee, particularly then Senator Lambie for initiating the report and the chair, Senator Alex Gallacher, and the deputy chairs, Chris Back and Bridget McKenzie. I thanked all who made submissions to the inquiry. It is because of their strength and their courage in making those submissions that the report was able to provide such a comprehensive picture of the difficulties faced by veterans as they transition into civilian life.

The Senate report referred to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report commissioned by the Department of Veterans' Affairs to calculate accurate numbers and rates of suicide deaths amongst serving personnel, reservists and ex-serving ADF personnel. The AIHW found that between 2001 and 2015 there were 325 certified suicide deaths among people with at least one day of service since 2001. Of these deaths, 51 per cent were people no longer serving at the time of their death, 21 per cent were people serving in the active and inactive reserves at the time of their death, and 28 per cent were people serving full-time at the time of their death. Ninety-three per cent were men and seven per cent were women. The AIHW found that the suicide rates of ex-serving men were more than twice as high as for those serving full-time or in the reserve. They were also slightly higher than for their counterparts in the general population after adjusting for age. Ex-serving men aged 18 to 24 were at particular risk, being two times more likely to die from suicide than Australian men of the same age. Ex-serving men aged 25 to 29 accounted for slightly more deaths than other age groups and were 1.4 times more likely to die from suicide than Australian men of the same age.

Data collection about suicide is difficult in the general population, and in the ex-service community in particular, due to the stigma which continues to surround suicide and the fact that a veteran's suicide may not be reported to DVA or anyone else for that matter. These figures may in fact be considerably lower than the real situation. Another point is that recruits to the ADF are fit and healthy, rigorously selected. Any suicide rate amongst ex-service personnel higher than the general population is very significant. So what has caused it? I believe it is significant that the inquiry found that many submitters identified delays, negative determinations or perceived maladministration in the Department of Veterans' Affairs compensation claim processes as creating critical stress for veterans and as a contributing factor to suicide. That is from the report at paragraph 3.43.

Another welcome initiative in this bill is a new income support payment, providing vulnerable veterans with interim financial support until their claims for liability for a mental health condition are determined.

The government's response to the Senate report acknowledged that many veterans have had negative experiences with the Department of Veterans' Affairs and that there is a need to streamline administrative processes. Streamlining administration is a good thing, and of course I support it, but what I want to see is a department generally committed to serving and supporting our veterans in a sympathetic and supportive way. Even though I still hear anecdotal evidence that this is not the case, I believe that everyone in the department are genuinely doing everything that they can. However, when I held this forum recently at Nightcliff Community Centre in my electorate, I and the shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs did hear overwhelmingly from the veterans that attended some of their frustrations in dealing with the department. Some saw that adversarial system. Some spoke of having to prove their case, of feeling demeaned and humiliated and having to get down and beg for help. This is obviously no way to treat those who have served our country. They spoke of having to explain their situation to officers who sometimes had little concept of the stresses and dangers of military service and training, let alone armed conflict, and who are not trained in dealing with emotional and stressed individuals. We need to make sure—and I am sure the department is doing this—that DVA officers, when they are doing their very special and challenging role, have the adequate training, mentoring and support to do their job.

We know that in different parts of the country veterans are experiencing different levels of support. We heard at the forum that increasingly some gold card holders were being told by medical practitioners that their books are full and some are being been turned away. Clearly this is unacceptable. There is a clear need to improve access for veterans to mental health services and to professionals who have an understanding of particular concerns of ex-service men and women. I add that in my electorate in Darwin and Palmerston and the Top End we need strong veteran advocates to help veterans in their dealings with the department. That is very important. We are currently advertising for such a position for a level 2 or 3 advocate to come up to Darwin and do that full-time work. I think it is at seek.com.au, for those who are interested.

Meaningful employment is very important for the self-esteem of ex-service personnel. Jobs help build social and professional networks and to some extent at least replace support and friendships inherent in service life. Of course they also provide remuneration that we all need for life's necessities. That's why the government's program to get veterans into skilled jobs and the Australian Veterans' Employment Coalition are so important and are doing such good work. I congratulate the companies that are part of that veterans' employment coalition and I look forward to seeing some of the results of their work. Major employers recognise that veterans have leadership and team work skills, flexibility and the ability to work in a fast-paced, changing environment. As one employer said, they have dependability, integrity, loyalty and experience, and that makes them especially suited for working in a culturally diverse or global environment.

Darwin is a very important defence city with a significant serving defence population, and this means that ex-service personnel increasingly choose to stay in Darwin when they retire or leave the services. We welcome them in the Top End, in the northern capital, and we value them. They enrich our community. We must also support them and provide them with the services that they need. They've served our country. They are the heroes of our nation and we should do everything that we can to support them.

I just want to acknowledge the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia NT. They changed their name recently to Veterans Australia NT. By dropping 'Vietnam' out of their name—a first for Australia—they've sent a very clear message to veterans that they are inclusive. I congratulate them for making that change, and I commend the bill.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the government's reforms to the veteran payment system which will lend a hand to ex-service personnel when they return to their community. There are 300,000 people who receive a benefit of some kind from the Department of Veterans' Affairs, including over 3,000 in Wide Bay. It was a coalition election commitment to provide more support to veterans in both employment and the area of mental health treatment. These people put their lives on the line to protect us and our freedoms. It's only fair we support them and their families as they make the transition back to civilian life, which can be very hard. While all men and women of the ADF are deserving of respect, we particularly remember those who paid the ultimate price. Each year we commemorate lost soldiers on Remembrance Day, promising: lest we forget.

We should remember that suicide also affects service personnel, taking young lives and destroying families. A study in 2012 found that 54 per cent of all ADF members experience some kind of mental ill-health. For many ex-service personnel, the trauma of war remains in their mind and triggers another battle, which for many is too much to bear. Between 2001 and 2015, at least 325 ex-service personnel tragically took their own lives—more than three times the total number of casualties in Afghanistan. The true figures are estimated to be higher than this because suicide is only recorded by the DVA when a family makes a claim. One estimate put the veteran suicide toll last year at 84, up from 79 in 2016. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, young ex-service personnel are twice as likely to take their own lives than the average Australian. They are considered high-risk because they often return to the community with severe mental trauma and without the skills to secure employment. Worse yet is the difficulty to receive timely and appropriate compensation for their mental illness. In 2016, the Senate began an inquiry into this issue where they heard from hundreds of veterans and their families and peak organisations. The committee, which included my colleague, Minister McKenzie, was met with a deluge of complaints about the DVA and its outdated protocols. Veterans reported that their legitimate claims were being stonewalled by bureaucracy.

One of the families that voiced their concern was the Bird family from the Gold Coast. In November of 2016, John and Karen Bird said that their son's claim had fallen on the deaf ears of complacent staff. Jesse Bird had developed post-traumatic stress syndrome after he witnessed a close mate of his die instantly from a bomb blast in Afghanistan. When Jesse returned to Australia, he struggled to hold a job due to his anxiety.

Jesse's claim for compensation was stalled for months and was eventually declined. Jesse's family blamed his continued mental decline in part on the application process. A few weeks after being denied this vital benefit, Jesse tragically took his own life. The tragic and avoidable death of Jesse Bird sent shock waves across the country. Then veterans' affairs minister Dan Tehan admitted the department had grievously let Jesse and his family down.

The respect we show for the military must not only be found in museums and monuments. The true test is whether we're prepared to give all veterans, especially those requiring urgent assistance, a dignified and fair life. These reforms to DVA will go a long way to achieving this. They are in response to the recommendations of the Senate report The constant battle: suicide by veterans as well as advice from the Productivity Commission and the Australian National Audit Office.

Veterans incapacitated due to mental ill health will no longer need to file lengthy paperwork in order to receive compensation, as the process will be automated. Crucially, a new income support payment will be provided with assistance while their claims are processed. This is expected to benefit approximately 830 veterans and their families and partners in the first year.

Like all good welfare policies, these reforms are designed to help people take control of their lives without encouraging dependency. I'm pleased to say that, in addition to reforms of the payment system, a suite of new services will be available to veterans and their families. The government has committed $31 million to veterans' mental health services on top of the $58.6 million announced in last year's budget. This funding will go towards community-driven initiatives by practitioners and ex-service organisations working together. Families of veterans will also receive more support, including increasing access to child care, counselling and financial advice services. Particularly noteworthy is the commitment to a two-year trial program worth $3.6 million. The Coordinated Veterans Care Mental Health Pilot will include up to 250 veterans in regional and rural communities. The service will be available for both gold card and white card holders, meaning young ex-service personnel can participate. The pilots will be run by a local GP and nurse and use an innovative smartphone app designed by an external expert in mental health. I'll be watching the results of this trial with keen interest. In the past, the need to travel to a city to get specialist treatment has deterred many from seeking help. I thank Minister McKenzie and Assistant Minister Gillespie for their interest in this area and will continue to work closely with them to provide access to mental health services in Wide Bay and across regional Australia.

It is clear that early intervention is the key to preventing suicide. A well-known case in point is the lauded response by the US Air Force in the 1990s to rapidly rising rates of suicide among their personnel. A series of targeted measures for soldiers during and after their service led to a massive 21 per cent decrease in suicides, going from a high of 68 in 1994 to 20 in 1990. The success of the United States Air Force in reducing suicide is something we should strive to achieve in the Australian military. Never again should diggers feel the need to keep their emotions bottled up as so many did when they came home from the Great War.

I'm constantly inspired by the great work done by community-driven groups like Soldier On and Mates4Mates. I want to see more projects like these in the future reaching out to veterans and transforming their and their families' lives for the better. I fully support the government's welcome reforms to DVA. They are a long time coming and will allay widespread concerns within the veteran community that the department is not working for them. I will continue to be a strong advocate for veterans as well as all other emergency services workers facing daily trauma. I thank Minister McCormack for his work and implore the government to do everything it can to reduce suicide across the board and eliminate the stigma attached to mental ill health, lest we forget the victims of veteran suicide in the past. Let's work to stop the deaths into the future.

Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To be a member of the Australian Defence Force is to dedicate your service and your life to the care and defence of this country. Like everybody in this place, I'm incredibly grateful and thankful for the work that they do. I saw this firsthand on my deployment last year to the Middle East—which I was, by the way, very terrified to visit. I got a firsthand look at the anxiety that runs through you when you are going into a war zone. Our defence personnel have a rich and defining history in helping shape what it is to be an Australian. Mateship, a fair go, courage and sacrifice are all the hallmarks of what you'll find in any of our defence personnel.

As those people return to civilian life, we owe it to them and to their families to ensure that we can offer the best possible service and care. They deserve nothing less than our support on their return. For veterans who have served, there might be fewer deaths in modern warfare now than what we have seen in times past, in World War I or World War II, but there is still a high level of conflict and engagement that happens on the ground there that you don't see in normal life. It is a place like no other. They have stood on our front lines and they've defended our nation, and they've helped other countries to be secure and independent. We owe it to them to provide absolute care and support.

We're supportive of the amendments that are proposed in the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018, which address some of the recommendations out of the Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel. Their wellbeing and obviously the care of their families are paramount. For some, their service and the circumstances that they served in may have a greater impact on them. We have a duty of care to ensure that they receive all of the support that we can offer them to live full and productive lives post service. We believe that one suicide is one too many.

There are currently just under 60,000 Australians serving in our defence forces, and the estimated number of living veterans is 316,900—not a huge number compared to the size of this country. The Department of Veterans' Affairs is currently supporting about 221,000 veterans. In my electorate, we have just under 1,000 receiving assistance through the department, and 502 are receiving a disability pension. In addition, there are 306 war widow pensioners. They are not massive numbers. They are not massive numbers of people who deserve our complete and utter respect and support. They are not huge numbers compared to some other groups that we have to look after in this country, but they are very, very important. And I say that they're not a massive group because the level of support they require, if we get it right, will not continue to increase. The level of support that they need will decrease when we do get it right, but we don't get it right.

From the discussions that I've had in my community and when I was in Afghanistan last year, they want the support to transition when they get back home. Overarchingly, that was the thing that the serving men and women talked to me most about when I was in Afghanistan. They didn't talk about the day to day; they talked about their families back home, and they talked about how they would reintegrate—that was an anxiety that ran through all of them: how they were going to do that. They talked constantly about how much money is put into getting them battle ready but how very few resources are put into them when they return.

We are obviously committed to supporting our current and ex-service personnel. Some veterans find it difficult to re-engage with communities, and they're often affected by physical health issues, deterioration of mental health, lack of financial support and difficulties in finding a meaningful job—that is, obviously something that they are qualified to do so but also something that's going to provide them with the stimulation and the engagement to use some of the skills that they have spent part of a lifetime in developing.

It's difficult to estimate the number of veterans who are homeless. We know that we estimated the number as about 300 people, back three years ago, but it's pretty raw data, as with collecting any homelessness statistics. More needs to be done to understand what that is and how that's driven.

We think that the veterans have been through enough, and they have done everything that we have asked of them and then more. We support all veterans, and that's why Labor supported the establishment of the Senate inquiry a few years ago to explore the issues facing ex-service men and women. A number of issues were highlighted through the Senate inquiry, including the impact of financial stress, the adversarial and lengthy claims process and a lack of support for partners of veterans. I've seen firsthand the stressful and difficult work of defence personnel. I studied at university with a Raafie's wife who had four children and saw just how difficult it was for her to move into various communities over their lives. I think they're currently deployed—I lose track—up near Tamworth. Thank goodness for Facebook because it means I'm able to keep up to date with where they are. Taking a family and moving them just a couple of postcodes away is one thing, and it can be quite traumatic for a family to do that. But to be uprooted every couple of years the way defence families are is another thing entirely, and we need to make sure that we are providing that support to those families. It takes a village to raise a child and, if you're constantly uprooting children and partners of serving personnel and re-placing them in other areas, you don't have much time to create much of a village around you. So I'm pleased to see that, in these recommendations and in this legislation, we will do more to support those families.

When I had the opportunity to spend time with troops in Afghanistan, they all talked about their partners back home. Overarchingly, they want to know that their families will be taken care of but also that their contribution is supported and, more importantly, valued. Some of them said that they feel a bit forgotten in the current battle because most Australians wouldn't know that we've got so many serving in other countries right now. It's our duty to recognise them.

The Senate report, The constant battle: suicide by veterans, made 24 recommendations, and the government has accepted 22 and supports two in principle. We're pleased to see the action being taken to ensure these changes are implemented. We've offered our support to the government to ensure the recommendations don't just sit on a shelf. One of the surprising things when I came into this place was seeing how many inquiries have been done, how many lovely, bound books there are prepared by committees and secretariats and how very few of those recommendations are actually acted on. The bill seeks to address two of the Senate inquiry recommendations by establishing an interim incapacity payment for mental health and increasing support for families. We believe that support is absolutely critical and Labor have already agreed that, if we're elected, we will develop a family engagement and support strategy for defence personnel and veterans. The strategy would provide a national blueprint to include engagement of DVA and Defence with military families. It would also ensure that the best-practice support for families of serving personnel and ex-ADF members is consistently available across the country.

Their selfless sacrifice ensures our personal safety here. When I went to Afghanistan and visited all four bases, I learnt that there is a heightened sense of anxiety amongst personnel about what is going to happen on their return. I don't think that's something that we should take lightly. When they're over there doing their job, we want them to be able to be in the finest mental, physical and emotional state. We don't want them panicked about what's going to happen when they get back. We are well aware of the difficulties that veterans can face when they return home and the scars that they carry from traumatic experience. We know trauma can lead to suicide once veterans have returned home. Sadly, between 2001 and 2015, 325 veterans that we know of took own lives. It is a national tragedy that men and women who have put on that uniform and served our nation upon their return suffer such deep mental and emotional pain that they take their own lives. We need to do more. We need to find ways to support them and stop this from happening. I grew up with an uncle who was on HMAS Voyager and was left in the ocean for a couple of days. I know the night terrors that he endured, right up until when he passed away, and the fact that he couldn't sleep at night without a TV or a radio going because the darkness and the silence were just too much. That happened to him as a young man in his 20s; he passed away in his late 50s and that followed him right throughout his entire life. We don't want to see that. We don't want people to come back and be scarred or traumatised by things that they see while they're serving.

Schedule 1 of this bill seeks to provide additional support for current and former members by providing additional childcare arrangements, counselling, household services and attendant care. It's in direct response to recommendation 90 of the Senate report, which states:

The committee recommends that the Department of Veterans' Affairs review the support for partners of veterans to identify further avenues for assistance. This review should include services such as information and advice, counselling, peer support and options for family respite care to support partners of veterans.

Most of those men and women I met in Afghanistan would be very supportive and welcoming of that. They know their families are doing it tough back here while they are deployed for six months at a time, often with very little family support because, as I mentioned earlier, they are uprooted from community to community with not much opportunity to create that village that goes around you. The proposed amendments will enable the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission to provide additional child care, day care and before and after school care, brief intervention counselling, additional household services, home care and counselling assistance. The additional child care assistance will see families eligible for $10,000 for each child under school age and $5,000 for each primary school aged child. The assistance will help the families who support our veterans, and we absolutely welcome anything that can support these families.

Schedule 2 establishes the veteran payment, as the member for Wide Bay pointed out, the interim income support payment for those who are waiting. It is one thing to have a veterans' affairs department, but it is another thing to try to navigate it. I know at my local RSL there are dedicated volunteers whose sole job is to navigate DVA claims. I know of a former lawyer who now provides pro bono services for people who need to get access to DVA. That's an indictment of what's happening at the moment. Anything that can be done to support them in that interim period is incredibly important. The basic rate is $913 per fortnight for an individual, and $713 for a partnered person, subject to satisfying an income and assets test. They would be required to engage in vocational and psychosocial rehabilitation, including financial counselling. Partners of veterans may also be eligible for a payment. In addition to the basic rate, a person may be eligible for a pension supplement, rent assistance, remote area allowance and family tax benefit aid. It is anticipated that about 1,500 veterans and partners will benefit from this payment from 2017-18, which raises the question: what did they do before? We know what happened before. These payments will continue while the claim is being determined and for a period of time following the decision to allow a smooth transition to both of those. We support those measures.

Schedule 3 amends the MRCA and the Veterans' Entitlements Act to create the new Coordinated Veterans' Care Mental Health Pilot program to improve the mental health support available in rural and regional areas. Schedule 4 amends the provisions relating to compensation for household and attendant care services where an ADF member sustains a catastrophic injury or disease under the MRCA. The provisions will allow the commission to approve weekly amounts of compensation for household and attendant care service. It considers reasonable, with individual circumstances being taken into account. Schedule 5 is the first legislative amendment supporting the implementation of veteran-centric reform. This amendment seeks to enable veterans to have an additional way for a qualifying determination to be made. It will remove a step in the process that a veteran must currently undergo, where there is data and a complete service record. We're supportive of these changes that simplify processes for current Defence personnel and veterans, as long as it doesn't reduce their entitlements. We never want to be in a position where we are going backwards in our support for our veterans. We welcome the amendment to give access to the gold card to people who served in Japan at any time from 16 August 1945 to the end of January 1946.

Earlier this month I had the honour, as a patron of the Penrith branch of the National Servicemen's Association of Australia, to attend the 12th anniversary memorial and tribute-laying ceremony. I make mention of patrons Jim Aitken and Ross Sinclair, who I share that privilege and honour with, the president, John Taylor, and the honorary treasurer, Reverend Harry May, who has a finger in about every pie in Lindsay that a volunteer could. He is an amazing man who makes an enormous contribution to my community, especially through the National Servicemen's Association, which plays an incredibly role in supporting our national servicemen, veterans and their families. I thank the Nashos for all their work in my community. Organisations like this, and RSL sub-branches, do much to support our veterans and families that need support. Recently I went to the City of Penrith RSL sub-Branch drop-in centre to see the facility they have recently created to help some of those contemporary veterans to access free advice and advocacy referral services and to feel a little more comfortable coming into something they wouldn't be familiar with ordinarily. It's a commendable service for our Lindsay veterans and serving service personnel. I thank Mick McConnell, Brian Cartwright, Gary Scott and Mick Visinko at the City of Penrith RSL sub-Branch for this initiative. Local organisations and services in Lindsay provide critical support, and I thank them all. (Time expired)

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important legislation, the Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018. It is our obligation to look after our veterans who have served us well, and our Defence Forces are very much part of what defines this country. Their deeds over 100 years now have been very much part of what it is to be Australian. The debate today is particularly poignant given that 2018 is the year of the Centenary of Armistice—100 years since the guns fell silent at 11.00 am on the 11th day of the 11th month 1918.

One of the most challenging issues facing our current veterans is certainly one that this bill seeks to address—ongoing mental health. Between 2001 and 2015, the Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing figures state that some 325 veterans took their own lives. One suicide is one too many and, unfortunately, we have seen this number rising in recent years. The government is working on this important issue in a range of ways. In 2015, a mobile app was launched, Operation Life, which was developed to specifically assist those with unique challenges and circumstances that military service can present.

This legislation is part of the significant work the government is undertaking to make things better for our veterans and implements a number of specific initiatives announced by the government in October last in response to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee report—The Constant Battle: Suicide by Veterans. The government has provided an additional $31 million to support veterans' mental health as part of its response to the report, which comes on top of $58.6 million that was provided in the last budget for veterans' mental health. The bill also makes a number of other initiatives including simplifying the determination of qualifying service and extending gold card eligibility to Australian Defence Force members who served in Japan at the end of World War II before the establishment of BCOP and it makes a number of minor technical amendments.

Schedule 1 of the bill relates to family support. This measure delivers improved family support to veterans in receipt of incapacity payments and includes key psychological interventions such as greater access to child care and counselling to enable the family unit to maintain its connection to the community, employment and social interaction. Financial advice is also available. Schedule 2 introduces a new income support payment for veterans who have lodged a compensation claim for a mental health condition and are currently incapacitated for work, ensuring that those who are financially vulnerable can receive immediate financial assistance while their compensation claims are being determined.

Schedule 3 relates to the CBC mental health pilot, which will include up to 250 veterans with mild to moderate anxiety or depression and physical health problems. The pilot will be embedded in the existing Department of Veterans' Affairs CBC program, which uses a team based model of care led by a general practitioner and supported by a practice nurse. Schedule 4 relates to compensation for household attendant care services where there is catastrophic injury. This measure will provide a range of household and attendant care services for veterans who have a catastrophic injury or disease and aligns how catastrophic injuries are compensated under the equivalent legislation dealing with public servants.

Schedule 5 relates to qualifying service and this schedule enables the determination of qualifying service to be automated, removing the requirement for a veteran to make an application for determination. The provisions of schedule 6 are technical in nature and relate solely to the administrative arrangements under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988. Schedule 7 also is basically technical in nature.

Schedule 8 relates to the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests and British Commonwealth Occupation Force (Treatment) Act 2006, to extend gold card eligibility to Australian Defence Force members who served in Japan as Australian Defence Force members after the cessation of hostilities and before the formation of BCOF. This is very much a further welcome improvement. It's an important piece of legislation that I think provides important additional assistance to address the issue of veterans' mental health.

I'd like to refer to some of the great work that's done by ex-services organisations in my electorate. They do a great job in ensuring that the memory of the sacrifice and service of our veterans continues. We see our Anzac Day services growing larger and larger every year. I think it is in no small part due to the huge effort by our local ex-services organisations, who do such a great job not only in looking after the interests of veterans but also in ensuring that the memory of the service of veterans is maintained. I'd like to single out two particular ex-servicemen in my contribution today. One is Greg Laird, from RSL Port Macquarie Sub Branch, and the other is Bob Denner, from Dorrigo RSL sub-branch. Both were awarded OAMs in this year's honours list; a very fine tribute to two great men who make a huge contribution to their communities. I think that they were united in saying that they were accepting their awards on the basis of the broader contribution by the ex-services community more generally. I have a range of sub-branches across my electorate: Kempsey Macleay, South West Rocks, Macksville, Taylors Arm, Urunga, Coffs Harbour and Nambucca Heads.

On 18 February I was honoured to be able to attend the National Servicemen's Association Nambucca Valley branch commemoration of National Servicemen's Day at Nambucca Heads, a great service that that branch puts on every year to recognise the particular contribution of our national servicemen, who went where they were asked when they were asked. On the next day, 19 February, I had the opportunity to take Senator Molan on one of his first visits to a regional electorate as an elected senator in this parliament. We got to inspect the military museum at Bowraville, a fantastic local facility run by volunteers. I'd like to commend Blue Manning, Jim Cameron and their great band of volunteers, who do such a great job in the running and the improvement of the Bowraville military museum.

It is a great little military museum. It has a range of exhibits and a very strong focus on the Vietnam War period, given that most of the volunteers involved are, in fact, Vietnam vets. They have a vast range of equipment and memorabilia on show and a fantastic collection of early model military vehicles, from Bren gun carriers to Bofors guns and various blitz trucks to various jeeps, lovingly restored by the volunteers. Jim Cameron in particular is an incredible craftsman and has an incredible ability to do very impressive restorations on vehicles and military equipment. I commend this legislation to the House, but I more greatly commend the huge amount of work that is done by our ex-services organisations to support our veterans and to ensure that the sacrifices of our service personnel are never forgotten.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018 and give my wholehearted support for the bill's extension of additional support services for veterans and their families and the establishment of the interim income support veteran payment. I'd like to give particular mention to schedule 8 of the bill. At the time of passage of the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill 2017 I was unable to speak, and therefore would welcome the opportunity to set down some of my words of support on the parliamentary record.

Former Senator Xenophon has long campaigned for the civilian and veteran victims of the Maralinga, Montebello and Emu Field nuclear tests, as well as for those veterans who served in the post-World War II occupation forces in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Schedule 8 of the bill extends the provisions which provide a Department of Veterans Affairs gold card to those victims, obtained in negotiations with the government as a direct result of the tireless advocacy of former senators Xenophon and Skye Kakoschke-Moore, who was a tremendous of defence personnel and veterans. Both of them were from the Nick Xenophon Team. These veterans and civilians have long suffered and have had very long struggles to convince the Department of Veterans' Affairs that their claims for redress and medical support were of merit.

Finally the burden of proof has been reversed for these veterans, who have struggled for so long against this in order to pay their medical bills. These changes are long overdue. Of the approximately 17,000 people affected by the British nuclear tests in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, approximately 1,100 survivors remain. Mr Yami Lester, a South Australian Aboriginal man, an elder, was blinded by the atomic fallout from a test site. That was reported on National Indigenous Television, or NITV. He said this has come 60 years too late:

Most of our people have passed away. They were young ones then, now they're older ones now, a few of them still living now today.

Sadly, Mr Lester died before the original Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill was passed. This is not ungratefulness; this is reality. I believe that successive Australian governments have utterly failed these victims of exposure to nuclear radiation. We cannot right this wrong. However, we can publicly recognise that the wrong took place, we can acknowledge Australia's collective failure and we can do what we can to provide meaningful relief to those who are still alive.

There is one additional matter that I would like to raise with the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the government. I have Australian citizens in my electorate who have been Australian citizens for many decades and who served with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. However, they were Commonwealth citizens at the time of their service—for example, they were British citizens. I would urge the minister to carefully consider extending the operation of this bill to those few, those very few, allied soldiers who served in the British Commonwealth Occupation Force and now call Australia home.

In conclusion, I would like to personally thank former senator Nick Xenophon for not giving up the fight for the much-deserving civilians and veterans who were exposed to nuclear radiation. A Department of Veterans' Affairs gold card makes a lasting and meaningful difference to those remaining survivors.

Finally, I would like to say a few wonderful words about my RSLs. My RSLs don't have pokies. They are safe, welcoming places for veterans and their families, and they have warmly welcomed me into their places. They never forget the birthday of a member and they never forget a member that they've lost. They are community venues, places of mateship and places of warmth and friendship. They have local museums and they host many events in my community commemorating many fields of war and of course Remembrance Day and Anzac Day. Most importantly, beyond all of the event work that they do and the mateship that they have between themselves, they are connecting with the next generation and making sure that our schoolchildren are aware of the sacrifices of the generations that have gone before them. So I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the RSLs in my community. You do a wonderful job, and it is my great privilege to support you.

Sitting suspended from 12:39 to 16:02

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak in support of the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018. I'd like to take this opportunity to commend my colleagues the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Michael McCormack, as well as his predecessor, Dan Tehan, for the tremendous work they've done to ensure that our government is providing the support and the services our veterans and their families deserve. This bill contains eight schedules which will introduce several new initiatives to deliver a range of services for the veterans' community and their families.

In my electorate of Forde, I'm very proud to support our local veterans, and veterans' support services, because they have done so much to protect our country. It is important that we as a government, and, I think, in fairness, all of us in this chamber, recognise and support and attempt to do our best to protect our veterans and look after their best interests.

One of the great local services in my community is the Beenleigh RSL sub-branch, which runs a range of fantastic veterans' support programs and services. I always enjoy dropping in to the Beenleigh RSL's fortnightly Diggers Day to share a beer and have a few laughs with the members. But you never walk away from Diggers Day without understanding what they truly think about a range of issues.

I'm also proud to support the neighbouring RSL sub-branch of Greenbank, as well as the North Gold Coast RSL sub-branch in Upper Coomera. Every year we see our local service clubs go above and beyond, to mark important anniversaries in our nation's history—the anniversaries of battles that have won our freedom; battles, sadly, of tragic loss; and battles that have forged the mateship and camaraderie that define Australia. Their commemorative services are a constant reminder of the service and sacrifice of our men and women, past and present, in peacetime and in conflict, in Australia and abroad. These services keep the spirit of national pride at the forefront of our minds and seek to teach our future generations the importance of remembrance.

RSLs around Australia play such an important role in providing a voice at state and national levels for the service and ex-service community. They maintain the lasting ties of mateship that perpetuate the spirit of Anzac, and their community spirit spreads so much further than the commemorative services; they also provide much-needed support to those who have served the nation and their families. When a current or ex-service person is sick or down on their luck, our local RSL sub-branches are there to help. Their arms of support stretch out to provide help with pensions, welfare, medical attention, finding accommodation or housing and even suitable employment. Our RSLs provide a strong voice for those who have served our nation so bravely, many of whom, sadly, paid the ultimate sacrifice. They advocate for a strong Defence Force to protect our country and encourage the best possible conditions for current Defence Force personnel and ex-service members. The team at the Beenleigh RSL Sub-Branch are very proactive and always looking for ways they can best utilise what the federal government has to offer in grants to improve the range of services and facilities they can provide to the ex-service community and those members still serving today. I have enormous respect for the work they do, and I'm pleased that with the schedules in this bill we can continue to build on the support that has been provided to veterans over many years.

The eight schedules and the new initiatives in this bill before the House will help more than 300,000 Australians who have served in Australia's Defence forces. Every year more than 5,000 members of our Defence forces leave service. How we help these men and women and their families reintegrate into general society is a vital component of our commitment to supporting our veterans. Schedule 1 of this bill will introduce a range of measures aimed specifically at providing family support to veterans and their families. Families, as we in this place know well, provide an important role in supporting current and ex-serving Defence Force members. In particular they make an enormous and significant contribution to their health and wellbeing. To build on the existing support an additional $7.1 million over four years will help extend the support available to families of veterans. This includes greater access to child care, home care and counselling, and will also help families maintain connections to the community and employment. While our veterans give so much to our country, the families who stand behind them sacrifice so much to help them. It is only right for this government to do all it can to support those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Schedule 2 will create a new veteran income support payment to provide vulnerable veterans with interim financial support until their claims for liability for mental health conditions are determined. The veteran payment will support around 830 veterans and 690 partners into the 2018-19 financial year. Schedule 3 of the bill will enable selected white card holders to participate in a new Coordinated Veterans' Care Mental Health Pilot, a program for veterans with mild to moderate anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or comorbid physical health problems. This pilot program was allocated $3.6 million in the 2017-18 budget. Schedule 4 will make amendments to ensure veterans with catastrophic injury or disease receive at least the same entitlements as civilian employees. Schedule 5 will enable the automation of a qualifying service determination prior to or at the time a veteran engages with the Department of Veterans' Affairs, or before the veteran makes an application for any service pension. This measure removes a step in the process a veteran currently needs to undertake in order to make an application for a service pension. Schedule 6 makes some minor technical amendments to ensure that the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988 is a military specific act. Schedules 7 and 8 also relate to a number of technical and minor amendments.

In 2016, the Turnbull coalition government made a commitment to ensure that current and future veterans and their families had the support they needed. I believe this bill provides some important changes that will better support veterans and their families. I'm proud to support these measures and help the coalition government deliver these important initiatives. These measures assist not only those who have served our nation but also their husbands, their wives, their partners, their fathers, their mothers and, importantly, their children. Each set of amendments seeks to mean better outcomes for veterans across Australia. I commend this bill to the House.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Cyber Security and Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018. Our ADF personnel put their lives on hold in service of our nation. They take risks, they make sacrifices and they commit their lives and wellbeing to the protection of this country, to the protection of our way of life, to the protection of our nation's security and to the protection of our wellbeing. Upon return, the scars these men and women bear are not always visible. In these circumstances, we as a nation have a duty of care both to our returned service personnel and to their families—and I want to underscore that. This is as much about the veterans as it is about their families. I know of my late father-in-law's experience and my late mother-in-law's experience. My late father-in-law was a Vietnam vet and my late mother-in-law always said that she got a different man back from the war. So this is as much about the families, Mr Deputy Speaker, as it is about the veterans, and, as you know, it's not just the partner or the spouse of the serving member; it's also the children. We hear of those stories of intergenerational PTSD as a result of the trauma—the post-traumatic stress that has emanated from conflict and from serving in really difficult circumstances, including disaster relief and humanitarian assistance. It potentially has a significant knock-on effect down the generations. So it is our duty as a nation to care for those returned service personnel and their families and children to ensure that they receive the support they need to live full and productive lives.

That's why the Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel was so important. It allowed us to explore the issues facing our ex-service men and women and identify ways we can improve outcomes for our veterans and their families. The report made 24 recommendations and the bill addresses two of those recommendations. It establishes an interim incapacity payment for mental health and increasing support for families. Support for veterans' families has been an issue that Labor has been pursuing, particularly the member for Kingston, who is the shadow minister. She's been an active advocate on this issue. She has pursued this issue relentlessly, particularly through the Family Engagement and Support Strategy for Defence Personnel and Veterans. I am delighted that Labor has committed to developing this strategy if elected. The bill is comprehensive in its amendments, with eight different schedules covering a variety of areas, including family support, as I mentioned, veteran payments, compensation for catastrophic injury, a coordinated veteran care mental health pilot, qualifying service and the Specialist Medical Review Council—a range of areas are covered by this bill.

I want to go into a number of those schedules. The previous speaker went into all eight and I do want to cover them off for the purposes of the record. Schedule 1, as he mentioned, seeks to provide additional support for current and former members and the families of current and former members, including deceased members, by providing additional childcare arrangements, counselling, household services and attendant care. This schedule is in direct response to recommendation 19 of the Senate inquiry, which called for a review of the support available to partners of veterans to identify avenues of assistance. As I mentioned, it is not just the veterans who experience trauma and feel the effects of conflict sometimes many years after the actual event; it's also the families that bear the brunt of that, which is why it's so important that as much support is provided for them as is for the veterans.

Schedule 2 establishes the veteran payment, which is an interim income support payment for those waiting for their mental health claims to be determined. These payments are subject to satisfying an assets and income test and require individuals to engage in vocational and psychosocial rehabilitation including financial counselling. Partners of veterans may also be eligible for a payment. This new payment is also in response to the Senate inquiry and the outcomes of the inquiry into the tragic suicide of Jesse Bird.

Schedule 3 amends the MRCA and the Veteran Entitlement Act to create a new pilot program to improve mental health support available in rural and regional areas. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, coming from a regional area, a number of our defence bases are in regional and rural areas like your own and that of the member for Herbert, who is here speaking on this bill. There is a number of regional areas that house huge populations of the Australian Defence Force and proudly do that, with the ADF knowing very much that they have a social contract with these communities and that there is a mutual respect between both the ADF and the host community, so to speak. There's a number of Defence bases in regional areas, so it's vitally important that we provide those mental health support services in those regional and rural areas where sometimes finding the expertise, the staff and the skills can be challenging. I know that the member for Herbert, who is a professional in this space and has been an active advocate of mental health for decades, will be discussing this issue in more detail in her contribution. And I commend and thank the member for Herbert for her contribution to the mental health of her community for, as I said, not just a few years but decades across a broad range of areas. I look forward to hearing the member's discussion on that later.

Schedule 4 will amend the existing provisions in relation to compensation for household and attendant care services where an ADF member sustains a catastrophic injury or disease under the MRCA. The new provisions will enable the commission to specify the conditions for the purposes of the definition of 'catastrophic injury'. The provisions will allow the commission to approve weekly amounts of compensation for household and attendant care services—so vital in support for those who are doing it tough—and those services will be provided in circumstances that are considered reasonable.

Schedule 5 is the first legislative amendment supporting the implementation of veterans-centric reform and is part of the broader improvement strategy designed to ease the transition process for veterans.

Schedule 6 makes a number of technical amendments to the DRCA which will remove redundant references to Comcare and other bodies and repeal provisions not related to providing compensation and rehabilitation to current and former ADF members and eligible persons.

Schedule 7 makes a number of consequential amendments related to the veterans' affairs omnibus act of last year. A number of references are made to 'the council', which will now change to a uniform reference of 'the review council'.

Schedule 8 makes a number of amendments and the first to the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests and British Commonwealth Occupation Force (Treatment) Act 2006. It will enable a person who was a member of the ADF and who served in Japan at any time from 16 August 1945 to the end of 30 January 1946 to be eligible for the gold card. This amendment is intended to extend the gold card eligibility to those members of the ADF who served in Japan just prior to the British Commonwealth Occupation Force and subsequently missed out on the changes that came about last year. The second change aligns the pension age in the VEA with the DRCA and MRCA. That's it for the schedules. I thought there was one more!

That gives you a very brief overview of the detail that is in this bill that provides support to veterans and their families across a broad range of areas and addresses a number of glitches that weren't anticipated in reforms of the past. But specifically, in closing, I just want to spend some time talking about a fantastic veterans program in my own community.

Everyone is familiar with Soldier On and the great work that they do. They had a launch just this week, at Parliament House, of their latest program of employing their veterans in a range of programs across Australia. But there's a very special program that's very quietly operating in my electorate, up at Tharwa. I visited there just recently to go and talk to the owner of this program about the great work that he's doing in providing some sort of therapy and healing for veterans, as well as easing the transition for those veterans who are leaving the ADF and going into civilian life. As you know from your experience, Deputy Speaker Buchholz, and from the experience of those members here, it can be quite traumatic leaving that sense of mission that people have from wearing a uniform and serving their nation through the ADF to go into a civilian life.

I want to give a shout-out to Karim and Mark at the Tharwa Valley Forge. Through Karim and Mark's efforts, they've developed a wonderful knife-making program—beautiful knives, Deputy Speaker; I'd love to take you out there. The knife-making program has been developed for veterans and retiring defence personnel. Mark and Karim developed a series of courses for veterans and their families that will assist them to reintegrate and reconnect following their military service. Fortunately, they managed to secure a grant of $58,000 under the Veterans and Community Grants program. Through that, they're now providing 64 veterans with 16 courses, and that will give them this wonderful opportunity to engage in making knives through this forge.

The Tharwa Valley Forge is not just a forge. They've got the knife-making program where they're focusing on veterans and easing that transition for veterans and helping in the healing, but they've also got blacksmithing. They've got a blacksmithing operation out the back of the forge. And Karim and Mark and his partners have got big plans for a range of programs for veterans in the future. What is so terrific about the forge is the fact that they use a model based on sustainable altruism. It's already been providing real benefits to veterans, and it will do so in the future. It was just terrific to visit and see these beautiful knives and the work that's being done but also to talk to the veterans and see the impact that it has on them. There were a number of veterans.

One veteran was there with his girlfriend because he wanted to do something in partnership with her. He wanted to have a hobby, a craft, in partnership with her. Through serving, he was constantly leaving her behind, and in going through rehabilitation and healing and transitioning he was constantly leaving her behind. He doesn't want to leave her behind anymore. He wants her to be part of this journey through this healing, through this wellbeing, through this transition, so he was there with his girlfriend. He said to me: 'Look, there are all these terrific programs that Soldier On runs. There are all these other terrific programs where other outfits—Mates4Mates and a range of other really great organisations—are doing great work. But there's a lot of yoga; it's a lot of art therapy—it's a lot of activities that I traditionally wouldn't be interested in.' What he loves about the forge and the work that Karim and Mark are doing is that he gets to make knives and to create beautiful things out of metal through blacksmithing. Over the course of the three days of the course, the participants start by forging their own steel. They shape and sharpen their own blades, they make the handles out of wood and handcraft the wood, and then they piece it all together, the end product being a beautiful, magnificent piece of art.

Finally, I will talk about Mark. He took a circuitous to knife-making. He enlisted in the army at 17, served for 13 years and saw active service in East Timor and Iraq. As a result of his service, he was medically discharged in 2009 and faced a difficult road to recovery. Fortunately, thanks to the work that he's doing with the knife-making and forging—which he gained an interest in through a gift voucher from his wife—he's now actively engaged in creating this amazing transition for veterans: healing them, helping with their transition and really delivering great benefit. I commend the work of the Tharwa Valley Forge.

Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018. In doing so, I would like to share some words from Cassandra, a veteran of the Royal Australian Navy and a constituent of my electorate of Dobell, who has written to me a number of times deeply concerned about the wellbeing of veterans and, in particular, the rising rate of suicide. In November last year she wrote:

I woke this morning to hear the number of Veteran suicides so far for 2017 has risen to 73. Every time this number rises I feel immense sadness but this one more so as I have now learnt his name. I lived next door to him, his beautiful wife and two wonderful children. He was discharged some years ago but has forever struggled with … PTSD and yesterday he made the ultimate decision to end his life. Many will not know the years of impact on not only this person but his family behind closed doors, it was more than any can imagine.

Veteran suicides are a national tragedy. Labor is committed to supporting our current and ex-service personnel and their families. Labor supported the establishment of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel as a way to thoroughly develop responses to the issues facing our ex-service men and women. The inquiry took almost a year to complete and received over 400 submissions detailing the experiences of individuals and interested organisations and suggesting ways we can improve the lives of our veterans and their families. I want to take the opportunity to thank those people who shared their deeply personal experiences as part of this process. A number of issues were highlighted by the inquiry, including the impact of financial stress, the adversarial and lengthy claim process and a lack of support for partners of veterans. The Senate inquiry made 24 recommendations, of which the government accepted 22 and two in principle. Labor offered our support to the government to ensure these recommendations were implemented quickly and effectively. This bill contains a number of measures, several of which address recommendations that came out of the Senate inquiry. We were pleased to see action being taken to make this change. We will continue to apply pressure to the government to keep these changes on track.

This bill seeks to address two of the recommendations of the inquiry by establishing an interim incapacity payment for mental health and by increasing support for families. Greater support for families is an issue which Labor is actively pursuing. It is important to support those supporting our current and ex-defence personnel. It is for this reason that we committed, if elected, to developing a family engagement and support strategy for defence personnel and veterans. This strategy would provide a national blueprint to engage DVA and Defence with military families. It would also make support for families of serving personnel and ex-ADF members consistently available across the country.

I have often spoken with Bob Ihlein, who is from The Entrance Mens Shed and is a member of Overwatch, a veterans suicide prevention group and a strong advocate for veterans mental health and suicide prevention. Bob let me know recently that Overwatch has saved at least 15 lives because of its interventions. Bob has said that providing child care, counselling and household help for veterans and their families is important in helping them deal with their problems and with DVA itself.

Schedule 1 of the bill seeks to provide additional support for current and former members and the families of current and former members, including deceased members, by providing additional childcare arrangements, counselling, household services and attendant care. This is in direct response to recommendation 19 of the Senate inquiry, which called for a review of the support available to partners of veterans to identify avenues of assistance. Labor welcomes this additional funding and support for those who support our current and ex-serving defence personnel.

Schedule 2 establishes the veteran payment, an interim income support payment for those waiting for their mental health claims to be determined. These payments are subject to satisfying an asset and income test and require individuals to take part in vocational and psychosocial rehabilitation, including financial counselling. Partners of veterans may also be eligible for a payment. This new payment is in response to the Senate inquiry and the outcomes of the inquiry into the suicide of Jesse Bird. The veteran payment will be a form of interim income support payment available between lodging a claim for a mental health injury and the claim being determined, to assist vulnerable people who may be in financial difficulty. Where a veteran and their partner are receiving the payment and the veteran dies, payment will continue to the partner. These payments will continue while the claim is being determined and for a period of time following the decision to allow for a smoother transition for the veteran and their family. Importantly, if the member's claim is not accepted, DVA will support the individual across to another form of income support so the veteran is not left without a plan or support. Labor supports this measure as financial security is crucial to those whose service has impacted them and their family. It is our responsibility to support them. I mentioned earlier Bob from the Entrance Men's Shed and from Overwatch. He understands how important the interim payment is for veterans waiting for their claim to be dealt with. This is what he said to me about this interim support:

Veterans need income while their claims are being dealt with; the cost of living is still the same and you need some sort of income.

It just makes sense.

Schedule 3 of this bill creates a new pilot program to improve mental health support available in rural and regional areas. Before coming to this House I was a mental health worker for 10 years at Wyong Hospital, near where I grew up. I've seen firsthand the difference it can make to have timely access to psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, occupational therapists and other people involved in supportive services. The Coordinated Veterans' Care Mental Health Pilot will build on the existing Coordinated Veterans' Care program, which uses a team based model of care, which is vital, led by a general practitioner supported by a practice nurse. This pilot will allow the GP to assess, diagnose, undertake care planning and refer clients to use an application on a smart device. It will be targeted to those veterans with mild to moderate mental health conditions such as anxiety or depression, who also have a physical condition requiring pain management. It will recruit up to 125 people each year over two years, with the aim to provide support to veterans in rural and regional areas. I earlier mentioned my experience as a mental health worker. In particular, dealing with pain as a comorbidity with mental health conditions is extremely complex and requires coordinated care by multidisciplinary teams, so I strongly support this measure. Access to support for mental health conditions in rural and regional areas is an issue of ongoing concern for veterans and those who care for them. Labor supports changes which address some of these concerns.

Schedule 4 will amend the existing provisions relating to compensation for household and attendant care services where an ADF member sustains a catastrophic injury or disease under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. The new provisions will enable the commission to specify the conditions for the purposes of the definition of a catastrophic injury. The provisions will also allow the commission to approve weekly compensation for household and attendant care services it considers reasonable in individual circumstances. Currently this assistance is provided via an exceptional determination. This change will remove this requirement, reducing delays in providing support. This amendment will also ensure that entitlements made under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act for household and attendant care services are equivalent to members covered under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act and civilians covered under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. The amount payable will be determined by the commission according to the individual's circumstances. In addition, for those who have already gained assistance through a special determination, their current level of assistance or benefit will be preserved.

Labor supports changes which streamline processes for individuals, particularly in circumstances where an individual has suffered a catastrophic injury. We have an obligation to make the process straightforward for these individuals and for their loved ones. As Bob has said to me often, one of the problems for veterans is the paperwork involved and the time taken for them to get help. As Bob said to me, 'When you are suicidal, the last thing you want to think about is paperwork.' It's not something that someone should have to deal with. The system should be streamlined and straightforward and should be there to support them.

Schedule 5 is the first legislative amendment supporting the implementation of veteran centred reform and is part of the broader improvement strategy designed to ease the transition process for veterans. This amendment will create an additional way for a qualifying determination to be made. The amendment will enable the automation of a qualifying service determination and will primarily be based on information from the Department of Defence to DVA. Essentially, this amendment will remove a step in the process a veteran must currently take in order to make an application for some benefit or payment. Again, Labor supports changes which improve processes and support for veterans and their families. That said, Labor will be monitoring these reforms closely to ensure they work as intended and don't chip away at veterans' entitlements.

Schedule 6 makes a number of technical amendments and enables the commission to provide information to the Chief of the Defence Force for the reconsideration or review of a determination made regarding the liability of injury, disease or death of an employee. This amendment will align the information-sharing provisions under the DRCA and the MRCA. The amendments in this section will also reinsert section 43 into the SRCA which was omitted during the drafting process. This will ensure that a peacekeeper does not experience any disadvantage. This does not reflect a policy change to any entitlement and/or benefit a peacekeeper may receive under the SRCA. The creation of DRCA in 2017 caused some angst in the veterans community. Labor worked diligently with members of the veterans community to follow up each concern in order to make sure that this legislation works as intended. Again, Labor supports changes which simplify the complex legislative framework which exists for current and ex-serving Defence personnel as long as it doesn't reduce veterans' entitlements. We are assured by the government that these changes have no impact on entitlements and, instead, only remove redundant provisions, add information-sharing and ensure peacekeepers are not disadvantaged by the creation of the DRCA. It is because of these assurances that we support this provision.

Labor supports the amendments proposed in this legislation—in particular, those which address recommendations from the Senate inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel. Labor will continue to monitor the implementation of the other recommendations to ensure they are delivered in a timely manner and that the gaps highlighted through the Senate process are addressed. Our ADF personnel take risks, make sacrifices and commit their lives to the Defence Force to serve our country. I thank the former Minister for Veterans' Affairs for the opportunity to meet with him and to discuss veteran suicides and raise the concerns of Cassandra, Bob and many others in my community who are doing what they can to draw attention to this national tragedy and are working locally in our community to try to improve the lives of veterans and those who care for them.

I'm looking forward to hosting in my electorate a safeTALK workshop organised by the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service to help raise awareness and understanding about the risk of suicide amongst veterans and help people involved in their care, including RSL sub-branches and welfare officers, by providing the tools that they need to be able to have safe conversations about suicide and suicide ideation. This is something that is really close to my heart. As someone who has worked in mental health and has seen the consequences for individuals and their families, I'm really pleased to speak in support of this bill. I'm looking forward to swift implementation so that no people are left behind or worse off. I support the government in what they're doing and support the recommendation of the Senate inquiry. This is something that really matters and it's something that we can and must do something about. Thank you.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Dobell for her contribution. The question is that this bill be now read a second time.

Cathy O'Toole (Herbert, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am also pleased to stand here and speak in support of the Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018. I am honoured to represent the largest garrison city in this great nation. The electorate of Herbert is home to the largest community of veterans, ex-service personnel and their families. I can call Australia a great nation thanks to the men and women who have served to protect our freedoms. Our Defence Force personnel have put their lives on the line so that we can have a great quality of life in this country. Our Defence personnel have made huge sacrifices: time away from their families, risking their own safety, lives, mental health and wellbeing. No amount of money or thanks we give to our veterans, ex-serving personnel and their families could repay the debt as they richly deserve, but as their elected representative I can fight for their rights and wellbeing every day in this place to ensure that they have access to the health care, training and job opportunities they require, that their families are supported well and that they have a strong voice in this place on all matters related to veterans.

I am passionate about veterans' affairs and have brought my mental health expertise into my role as the member for Herbert. Before being elected to this place I worked for 15 years in the role of CEO of two mental health community managed organisations in both the mental health specialist employment area and the community and social inclusion sector. People's lives are complex, especially when living with mental illness. Without a doubt this government needs to do much better in general, but particularly so in relation to veterans, and this bill will go some way towards that. Quality mental health services require highly trained people—that is, support workers and professionals who are able to build relationships based on trust and dignity. Contemporary mental health supports are directed by the person seeking the support, which may also include their family members.

This is particularly the case for veterans and ex-serving personnel. This approach to service delivery also creates training and job opportunities for veterans in the form of peer workers. Veterans and ex-service personnel struggling with poor mental health and PTSD will relate much better to workers with lived experience of defence life. That is why the suicide prevention trial, known in our community as Operation Compass, is doing so well. The project manager is a retired army colonel who has experienced a number of overseas deployments and has lived experience of defence life. Operation Compass has been supported by the Townsville Defence Community Reference Group that I established in 2016 in order to work with stakeholder groups and Defence personnel. I particularly acknowledge the outstanding contributions to this project from retired Lieutenant General John Caligari, personnel from Lavarack Barracks and RAAF Base Townsville, the Northern Queensland PHN, VOTSA—Veterans Off The Streets—the RSL and many local ESOs.

Operation Compass has also led to the establishment of The Oasis, a veterans' hub that will be a one-stop shop for transitioning service personnel and those who have transitioned and are in need of assistance, including mental health support. The Oasis is also supported by the Townsville Defence Community Reference Group. I understand our veterans and ex-serving personnel and families deserve quality, timely and appropriate supports. My meetings with veterans and veterans' organisations over the last year has led me to understand that we lost 86 veterans to suicide in that 12-month period. One life lost is simply one too many. This figure shows the government needs to do better by our veterans. As I said, this bill goes some way towards starting that help today.

I am proud to stand with Labor in support of this bill. This bill seeks to address two recommendations from the Senate inquiry by establishing an interim incapacity payment for mental health and increasing support for families. Where there are issues with someone's mental health, there are always issues for the family. All too often families get left out of the conversation about mental health support options. Families must be included, as they are the ones who bear the brunt of the impact and are there day in, day out, giving the support needed. Families provide the immediate and necessary support, and if we are to do better by veterans, we need to do better by their families when it comes to mental health support.

Greater support for families has been a focus for Labor in policy development, and this is essential, because often it also impacts on children. It is for this reason that a Shorten led Labor government has committed to developing a family engagement and support strategy for Defence personnel and veterans. This strategy will provide a national blueprint to include the engagement of DVA and Defence with military families. It would also ensure that best-practice support for families of serving personnel and ex-ADF members was consistently available across the country. The government has begun to implement these recommendations, but we cannot take our foot off the pedal when it comes to ensuring support for families, and Labor will ensure that this momentum continues.

Schedule 1 seeks to provides additional support for current and former members and their families, including families of deceased members, by providing additional childcare arrangements, counselling, household services and attendant care. These are very necessary and vital supports. From child care to counselling to household services, these measures are vital. The additional childcare assistance will see families eligible for up to $10,000 per child per annum, under school age, and/or $5,000 per child per annum for primary school children, and cover child day care and before- and after-school care expenses. Brief intervention counselling will also be extended to current and former members with a current rehabilitation plan within five years post discharge. Their families will also be entitled to access up to a total of 20 sessions over the five-year period. The counselling provided will be in addition to any treatment provided under the DVA healthcare system. Additional household services, home care and counselling will enable widows and widowers of an ex-ADF member to receive financial assistance for a range of services—for example, garden maintenance, home and domestic support—to assist them to adjust to life after the death of their partner. This increased assistance is intended to include a current or former member who has a post 1 July 2004 warlike service and has a current rehabilitation in place, and the partner, children, parents and siblings of deceased members who rendered warlike service and who may have committed suicide due to their service. This is intended to recognise the unique needs of these members and their families and provide an appropriate level of assistance to assist their health and employment outcomes and provide needed support for the family who support the member.

When a person's mental health is affected, they should not have to jump through hoops just to get help. Everyone should be able to reach out for help.

There are a number of measures in this bill that I proudly support, but, most importantly, it is the interim income support. In the last sitting of parliament, I met with Karen Bird, Jesse Bird's mother. She is an amazing woman, and, despite everything Karen, her husband and family have gone through—all of the negativity and the life-changing events—Karen has been able to turn her heartache into action, and I found her an incredibly positive and inspiring woman. Karen and her husband are passionate that their son's life was not lost and won't have been lost in vain. She is a quiet, deeply respectful but very strong woman, and she and her husband are working hard to ensure that no other family has to endure what they have endured. They will do whatever it takes to hold the government and the department to account.

Waiting around for help and assistance can send people into a further downward spiral which is life-threatening, which is why the interim income support is such a vital part of this bill, because it will make such a big difference. Schedule 2 establishes the veteran payment and interim income support payment for those waiting for their mental health claims to be determined.

This bill is the beginning of what governments can do to support our veterans, ex serving personnel and their families in their time of greatest need. I am hoping that the two recommendations from the Senate inquiry on this bill being implemented will be the first of many more to come. I can't express enough that we must do better by our veterans, ex serving personnel and their families. This is not about politics; this is actually about people's lives—people who have put their lives on the line for our safety and our freedom. Now it is up to us in this place to ensure that our veterans have access to all of the care and support that they need.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Herbert for her contribution. The question is that the bill now be read a second time. I give the call to the honourable member for Eden-Monaro.

Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Industry and Support) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz; it is great to be in this chamber talking on this bill with you present as well, given our recent collaboration in relation to the Breaker Morant story, and I think we reflected at that time about the issue of the mental health concerns that arose in the context of that guerilla war campaign and the effects that it had on those individuals and the outcomes that can be consequential on those mental stresses in those intensely stressful and trying environments. I reflected on that being an experience replicated in a lot of the recent conflicts of the men and women of our ADF in those environments, where there's no front line, no place to rest and no escape from the pressure and the threat, and you can't identify an enemy readily. We've seen that from Vietnam to Somalia to Afghanistan and Iraq. We have a generation of veterans coming through now who have had these experiences and who, thankfully, have not had to go through what our Vietnam veterans went through with the way they were treated by society when they returned, which was incredibly shameful.

I think I've reflected before about the experience of Frankie Hunt in the Bega Valley shire in my electorate. He was the Frankie from the song I Was Only 19 who suffered a terrible mine incident in Vietnam, but when he came back he spent a long period of time through rehabilitative surgery and treatment in Heidelberg hospital in Victoria. He recounts in the book that was written about the story of the song, The Jungle Dark, that one day a group of them were taken out to see a movie in Melbourne. They were all in wheelchairs and unable to walk, and it was during the height of the Vietnam demonstrations. As they got off the bus, a group of demonstrators saw them and one young lady in this group came over, was abusing Frankie and actually squashed a pie in his head. This is a guy in a wheelchair, a veteran of the Vietnam War, who's suffered terribly in the incident and the subsequent treatment, but Frankie's response—I won't use the full response—was, 'You forgot the sauce.' That says a lot about Frankie and his resilience and sense of humour. Hopefully, that illustrates a little the types of mental pressure these veterans were under. Frankie hung in there because of his mental resilience, but so many others were treated by their country at that time as pariahs. The extra pressure that that put on them mentally was enormous, and you can see how that generation of our veterans in particular has suffered probably in greater proportion that other veteran generations.

But I'm now seeing the younger veterans coming through in my region and, I guess, my cohort as well. They don't feel like the RSL is something they can reach out to. They feel a bit alienated from that organisation and I think there's work to be done there. We've had our issues, of course, in New South Wales with the New South Wales RSLs going through a difficult period, but these veterans don't feel that's their place, necessarily, to resolve their issues. So we need to be a lot more creative in how we deal with the initial phases of people struggling with mental health issues from their experiences while they're serving and also in graduating that through and having a continuum of support through their post-service life—and I'll come back to that.

Those pressures include just the pressures from service itself, let alone deployments. Some of the types of situations people get into in the obviously rigorous and dangerous training can be quite traumatic. I recall a grenade range incident while I was up at the 1st Division. A digger had crimped the pins on his grenades in his pouch to try and make it quicker to pull the grenades. A grenade went off in his pouch and set off another three grenades and he was literally blown to pieces, so you had limbs falling in front of his compatriots engaged in that exercise. So training at home also can be quite stressful and traumatic.

The stresses and strains on the families is another issue that I think can't be fully appreciated by the general community. I recall, every time that you would deploy, having to go through this process of doing your hero shot for if you're killed so that that's there for the media, sitting down and doing your will, and discussing the issues with your spouse and your family prior to departure. It's effectively a farewell process that you go through every time you deploy. The families go through that, and then you're not there, and you're not there for extended periods of time. I deployed something like five times. I put my family through that. You'd be away for six months to a year in circumstances like when I was in Somalia, where you couldn't even communicate with them in any way, shape or form. I remember that I managed to get one phone call in via satellite phone during that time we were in Somalia. The 18 minutes of conversation cost me about $300 at the time, which you had to pay for out of your own pocket. It was only later that things like email and Skyping have helped in that respect.

With those families—okay, you're away, you're out of the house and you're not there to help, but they also don't know if you're going to come back at all. That's a unique aspect of the job that you don't find in many others. If they hear something on the news or hear a report, instantly it's the cold sweats, it's the chill up the spine and it's the concern. I remember—fortunately by Iraq we had communications that were better—one situation where I'd come under attack in one particular location and we had 26 casualties. I knew this was going to be on the news, but fortunately I was able to ring my wife and tell her, 'Look, it's all good; no damage done,' et cetera. Whenever they're in that situation, hearing that news—the sheer terror that they go through in those circumstances. Then you come back and you disrupt the life that they've built while you've been away and how they do things. And then they're there to try to pick up your pieces of however you may be feeling or going through your decompression over whatever. There's a lot of pressure on them through all of this.

I've seen incidents in the past, too, in dealing with family members, because every generation of my family has served in the military. I remember, in particular, my father's father, my grandfather on my father's side, who served in the Middle East and in Java during the Second World War and was a prisoner of the Japanese on the Burma-Thailand Railway. I still have his loincloth from that experience to remind me: 'Don't complain. Harden up, princess.' He came back, obviously, with a lot of mental burdens. That generation who'd been prisoners were told to suck it up—to not impose your problems on anyone else or the family. They were internalising all of this, these horrendous experiences which we can't imagine that they endured.

In a terribly heartbreaking story, I had one constituent who was with her husband for 40 years, enduring these nightmares—you know, alcohol; times he'd wake up in the night and she would have his hands around her throat, choking her, thinking she was Japanese; and all that sort of stuff. It got to the point where she could no longer endure that. People were telling her that she had to leave the household because her life was at risk, and so she did. Within a short period of time, her husband passed away and she wasn't entitled to any of the war widows veterans support, because she had left him to basically save her own life. We were trying to work with Senator Sherry at the time to see if we could get some sort of ex gratia support for her. Unfortunately, she went into hospital to have a hip replacement, contracted septicaemia and died before we could sort that out.

These stories are amplified across the nation with the thousands of veterans that we have to look after, so I'm really pleased that we've worked together across the chamber and across the houses to sort out a lot of these issues. There will be more to do. We have to make sure that the processes are human in this. That's the biggest single thing I get from veterans, that the entry point of getting into the support of the DVA is a traumatic experience in itself because it's complicated and there's a lot of paperwork, and a lot of them can't cope with that. It's an adversarial type of situation where you feel like you're being questioned and you have to prove yourself.

We've heard, of course, reference to the tragic Jesse Bird story, which led to his suicide. That brings us to this really dark issue of suicide at the moment. The numbers that we've experienced are absolutely staggering. I come back to this issue of needing to build on this now. I'm pleased that we've set up the Parliamentary Friends of Suicide Prevention group with my friend the member for Berowra. We're working through the different types of dynamics—youth suicide, Indigenous and LGBTQI pressures that we're aware of—but we also want to focus on this veterans' issue as well and help them find mechanisms to manage their stress and to reach out to help when they need it.

If we look at some creative solutions, one solution that appeared to me was from a friend who was a fellow Iraq veteran who was having issues. He wanted to be on the land in the bush to deal with that, and it worked for him. He was leasing some farm area near Braidwood in the electorate and he invited out there other friends who were going through similar problems. By the time he was done with this, they'd built a residence out there where people could go to chill out. He had animal husbandry, farm mechanics, river restoration—all this stuff going on on this property that was really helping these people.

But I think we need to address people in the immediate circumstances. If you get in early with a lot of this stuff, you can choke off any festering or growth of the problem in later times. So we need to look at those creative solutions for how we help people decompress and how we make people more resilient as well.

I recently met with a veteran who went through a lot of this and produced a book. The guy's name was Todd Berry, and with Rob Ginnivan he wrote a book called Everything's OK. That's a really good start point for people looking for strategies. I must say that, in developing my own strategies, I felt that exercise was a great way to handle stress. Not looking in the rear-view mirror also helped me a lot.

This was brought home to me the other day when I had someone come to interview me from DVA doing a publication about Somalia. We're coming up to the 25th anniversary of that deployment. We had a very long interview, and I went back over that time. It reminded me of why I don't do that, because that night I actually did have an episode, and my poor wife sitting there nearly got punched while I was in the middle of a nightmare.

This is great work that guys like Todd and others are doing to reach out, admit their issues in situations and say: 'You're not alone. Let's talk together. Let's develop strategies. Here are the things that work for me. Here are things that seem to have worked for a lot of people.' I hope we can build a cohesive, continuing regime around managing veterans, because I think that was at the heart of what we were looking at with this reform of merging personnel with veterans in portfolio so that the data on each individual and each veteran can be maintained through. We basically should admit that we put these people through service and we basically own them for the rest of their time. That means not just dealing with clinical problems; one of the points that causes clinical issues is not having that transition period of leaving Defence and going into civilian life dealt with properly, and I'm glad to see we're developing a lot of strategies about helping them land in good civilian employment. That will address a lot of the transition issues that they need to cope with.

So I commend where we've gone with this legislation. As I said, there's more to be done, and I look forward to working together with my colleagues on finding solutions to these. Hopefully, through our committee, the parliamentary group on the prevention of suicide with my friend the member for Berowra will provide an opportunity for people who have these ideas to come forward and engage with both sides of politics and portfolio representatives. I know Greg Hunt, the Minister for Health, has been very supportive. Julie Collins, as well, has been to all of our activities. I look forward to that continuing and for us to be a conduit for solutions to all these problems to be brought forward to the policymakers.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

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