Vince Connelly (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the Census and Statistics Amendment (Statistical Information) Regulations 2020 tabled in Parliament on 11 February 2020 seek to ask a question in the 2021 census about whether someone has served in the Australian Defence Force (ADF); and

(2) recognises that having a census question around the ADF service will:

(a) for the first time, give a complete picture of the number of veterans in Australia; and

(b) allow governments of all levels to deliver the right services in the right areas to support veterans and their families.

We have taken great strides over the course of this government to make seismic improvements in the way that we support those who have served our wonderful country. As a veteran myself, and being the husband to another veteran, I'm honoured today to move this motion. I speak on behalf of fellow veterans to first make this point: veterans in our community do not expect any treatment different to or better than anyone else in society. It is worth noting, though, that the conditions of service and the nature of service do necessitate some very specific support measures.

I've witnessed firsthand the passion of our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, for supporting veterans. In fact, in just the third week that I was here in this place, the Prime Minister convened a roundtable, and he brought to that table the relevant ministers—the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel, and the Minister for Health—the chief of Australia's Defence Force and the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. The Prime Minister posed to us this one simple but very important question: what more can we be doing for our veterans?

Since its inception, this government has been continuing to do more for veterans. This has included structural changes such as automatically signing up new members of the Australian Defence Force to the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Similarly, when a defence member separates from defence, they are automatically issued with a white card, which enables them to access free mental health care for the rest of their lives. Another initiative is that the term 'veteran' is now being ascribed to anybody who has served even a single day in full-time service in ADF uniform. This most recent change will include the collection of data about veterans using the census.

Following my full-time Army service, I spent about a decade in the business environment. One of the many wonderful lessons I learned in business is that you cannot improve something which you do not measure. Up to this point, we really haven't measured much about veterans. Scott Morrison continues to lead a government dedicated to shaping responses based on reality which is informed by the gathering of data, and he has shown a willingness to make decisions based on that data. This change is a logical next step in the progression of our commitment towards Australian veterans and a further sign of the sincerity of our efforts, in that we are willing to ask the right questions. Census data will provide a better understanding of reality and will help us to tailor services at the right time, in the right areas and to the right people. It will also enable federal, state and territory governments and related agencies to better target and improve services and support. Oddly enough, ex service organisations, because of their outreach and their networks, have often been able to achieve an even greater reach into the veteran community than the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Organisations like the Veterans Transition Centre in Jarrahdale and Legacy WA, as well as individuals like Karyn Hinder, who runs Working Spirit to help veterans find jobs, are helping veterans who may have fallen through some of the more formalised cracks. Inherently and objectively, that is a good thing, but this new census data will help DVA, the Department of Veterans' Affairs, to better identify where those veterans are, what their circumstances are and what support they may require. It is, after all, one of the very highest responsibilities of a citizen to serve and protect their country. It's an equally and incredibly important role of society to support those veterans when they transition and to support their health and wellbeing.

I strongly endorse this motion. I look forward to understanding more and better supporting our wonderful veteran community.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I'm pleased to support this piece of private members' business in the form of the Census and Statistics Amendment (Statistical Information) Regulations 2020. I thank the member for Stirling for not only bringing about this private members' business but also for his service to Australia. His wife has also served Australia. They've both served our country very proudly and very well. I'm also incredibly proud to speak in this chamber for the first time in my new role as the shadow assistant minister for defence, and on a matter relating to the portfolio. We really must understand the contribution that defence personnel make to this country. This government has consistently, sadly, not shown the full amount of respect that I believe we need to show our defence personnel. Indeed, not long ago, the veterans minister was not really able to say how many veterans we have here in Australia. By anyone's measure, that is a problem. Currently, we have more than 105,000 personnel serving and working in Defence. We must ensure that these service women and service men are not forgotten. We must ensure that they're more than a statistic for this government. The government of the day must know how many ex service personnel we have and they must understand the needs of these ex service personnel, their families and the lifelong challenges that they face.

The federal Labor opposition, along with the states and territories, has long called for the Commonwealth to include in the census a question on defence service to identify Australia's veterans. The census can serve to capture lost data, allowing us to identify how many veterans there are and where they live, allowing the right services to be delivered to them and their families and to ensure that no-one is falling through the cracks. It simply won't be enough for the government to just collect this data either. It's one thing to put a question on a census; it's another thing to interpret that data and then put it into action for our veterans. We must make sure that the resulting information is shared with state and territory agencies and that ex-service organisations are able to better target support for veterans and their families in areas such as health, mental health, housing and employment. These are all critical areas.

Many recent reports on issues such as veteran suicide and homelessness have highlighted that too many veterans are falling through the cracks and that support services are failing our most vulnerable. We need the best information to be readily available to be able to understand the issues that veterans are facing and, more importantly, how to apply the policies and the fixes that we need. Engaging with defence families is another really vital area, because often family is the first line of support for our veterans. They have to have input into the services and they have to be able to help wrap around and provide the best possible support to our ex-service personnel.

This government must not be complacent any longer, and we can't wait until census 2021 to start taking steps to address veterans who are, sadly, being left out in the cold—actually, literally. Whilst Labor has long agreed that the census questions around ADF service will help ensure a complete picture, we know that government must do more to engage the veteran community and the families that are supporting them. Regional services need to be well informed if they're best able to serve those people who need them.

I want to take a moment to highlight the national shame that is the Morrison government's failure to make any real headway on tackling veteran homelessness—and we all shake our heads at that crisis. Damning figures show that from July around 5,800 ex-service men and women had been homeless in that 12-month period. It is just not good enough. In the Hunter alone, around one in 10 homeless people are veterans. In my electorate, the RSL's information is that there is a 25 per cent increase in the number of veterans locally who are seeking their help. This government must do more. These people have served their nation and they deserve to be well served by their government.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly support this motion and I would like to start my contribution by paying tribute to its mover, the member for Stirling, commending him on bringing this motion here to the chamber and, of course, acknowledging and recognising his service to this country and the service of his wife and all those men and women who have served the people of Australia—not just current veterans but also veterans from generations gone by. Recently, we acknowledged the anniversary of Victory in the Pacific, which is obviously a very significant element of the end of the Second World War, and it underscores the contribution that Australian men and women provided to this country in that conflict and so many conflicts throughout our history—and I acknowledge them.

The Americans tend to claim developing the term 'red tape', and they say that it comes from the difficulty for civil war veterans in accessing benefits and entitlements from the United States government. I think the red tape was in fact the ribbon that war records were tied in, and, when people went to seek and obtain entitlements from the US government, it was a very difficult process because they had to search for the service records of those personnel manually and through the process of tying and untying the red tape around the bundles of documents.

Although there are some other suggestions as to where that term came from, I think it's appropriate to acknowledge that there's been a long history of challenge in veterans across the world being properly supported by their governments after they've provided service to their countries. That's not because governments haven't wanted to—clearly—provide the support that our veterans deserve but there have always been bureaucratic red-tape challenges in properly identifying our veterans community and, therefore, making sure all veterans are getting the services that they are absolutely entitled to in our country.

I've certainly found, in a little more than 12 months, as a member of parliament it's rewarding but heartbreaking when you help a veteran to access services that they should have been getting from our governments ever since they left the ADF. There are some people, beyond question, who are entitled to services from our government, not just the federal government but state and territory governments as well, who are missing out on those services. Some of the worst examples are those living in homelessness and those living with very serious mental health issues who are not being properly supported by government. That's not because of any budgetary constraint. We know that veteran support services are demand driven. Anyone who's entitled to those services, when they apply for them, receives them. There's no limit on the Department of Veterans' Affairs budget. But there are so many people who are not properly being supported to get access to those services.

That's why I think the prospect of putting this question into the census process is a really important one. There's no strong body of data and evidence that identifies what our veterans community is compared to the number of people who are accessing the services they're entitled to. Clearly, asking this question and getting that data is going to give us an excellent opportunity to look at the areas where there are enormous gaps between the number of veterans we identify through the census process and those who are actually receiving the benefits and entitlements that they are absolutely entitled to for the service they provided to our country.

I think that will also send a really clear message to other jurisdictions, the state and territory jurisdictions et cetera, that it is really important that we do a much better job of data sharing between agencies at the Commonwealth and state and territory level. That's another big problem I've been made aware of, very consistently. There might be a certain agency in a state that is working with a veteran client and the Commonwealth is not having that flow of information to the Department of Veterans' Affairs and other agencies and, quite probably, vice versa. I think we'd all agree that it's vitally important to make sure that all agencies that provide support to veterans are sharing information with each other, to make sure that all the support possible is put in place for veterans. This will send a really clear message that we value our veterans communities and we want to make sure that they're given the support that they're entitled to by all levels of government. By putting it in the census, it clearly elevates it to that level of significance. That's why I commend this motion to the chamber.

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

I am pleased to support this motion and thank the member for Stirling for moving it. As a fellow veteran I acknowledge and thank him for his service, along with all other veterans in this place. The health and welfare of our defence personnel and veterans and their families is an extremely high priority for Labor. We understand, as I'm sure those opposite do, that we owe a duty of care not just for the time that people serve but continuing past peoples' service.

To that end, I think it was an extraordinary admission by the Minister for Veterans' Affairs—I think it was last year—that the government didn't know how many veterans died from suicide each year, and it didn't have reliable national figures for veterans in general. The reality is that we need to have the best information available if we're going to provide the best possible care and support for our ex-service personnel. So I, hopefully like everyone else in this place, support the addition of a question in the census.

Before the last election, Labor committed to improving the record keeping, data collection and information sharing between Defence, the Department of Veterans' Affairs and other agencies to address current gaps in the health of our personnel and veterans. We called for the government to include this question on military service in the next national census, to better inform the support of our veterans. The states and territories have long argued for this. In 2017 veterans affairs ministers from across Australia recognised the importance of the issue, unanimously agreeing that a question about veterans should be included in the next Australian census. This was then reinforced in 2018 and 2019, when those ministers again recognised the need for robust data on veterans issues, strongly endorsed the need for a veteran indicator in the 2021 census and discussed the benefits of this.

I want to acknowledge the WA Labor government minister and former SAS officer Peter Tinley, in particular, because I know he has been a very strong advocate of this. We welcome the fact that the 2021 census will include such a question about whether someone has served in the ADF. We know that having a census question around ADF service will help provide a more complete picture of the number of veterans in Australia and will allow governments at all levels to deliver the right services in the right areas to support veterans and their families. Recent reports on issues such as veteran suicide and homelessness, in particular, have highlighted that too many veterans are falling through the cracks and struggling to cope after leaving the ADF. We're facing an increasingly dire situation that will worsen as the longer term impacts of trauma and stress from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular, manifest amongst veterans. We need to have the best information available to understand these issues and provide the best possible care and support.

But the government cannot afford to see a new census question and the resulting data as a cure-all that will solve all policy problems on its own or an excuse to do nothing in the meantime. For a start, the government needs to do a lot more to support our Defence personnel when it comes to transitioning out of the ADF into civilian life through better support for mental health and suicide prevention, employment and housing. This is why we desperately need a full royal commission into veteran suicide with a clear start and end date, so we can finally get to the bottom of this terrible scourge and deliver real accountability and justice for our veterans and their families.

The government has announced a new National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention, but it's clear this won't be better than a royal commission, as those opposite have claimed. It is not a genuine attempt to tackle this issue, in my view. One thing they could do right now is get on and roll out the veteran recovery or wellbeing centres, as they're called, across the country, like the one promised at the last election for my electorate of Solomon. We know that people can struggle if they have nowhere to go for help. Fifteen months down the track, we haven't got a general manager for the Darwin wellbeing centre as yet. I hope that Mates4Mates can find the right person soon. When they're finally up and running these veteran hubs are a good example of the types of services that will benefit greatly from the data we get from a new census question on ADF service, which will help inform and target the support we deliver to veterans on the ground when and where they need it. I thank the member for the motion and I commend it to the chamber.

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the member for Stirling for bringing this motion forward. I absolutely agree that it is vital that we understand our veterans better in Australia. It was disappointing to hear the Minister for Veterans' Affairs admit last year that the government did not know how many veterans we have. This is absolutely appalling, and we need to rectify it immediately. My electorate on the New South Wales South Coast has a proud Defence family, so it is no surprise that we are equally proud of our veterans. It means so much to be able to honour and recognise the invaluable service that veterans have given to our country. In recent weeks I have been proud to attend three local ceremonies to honour and commemorate our veterans. This year we mark 75 years since the end of the Second World War, a momentous occasion. Like many things this year, though, our commemorations have been hampered by COVID-19, with services across the South Coast scaled down or, sadly, cancelled altogether. But many still found a way to honour our war heroes. On the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Pacific I joined a small group of veterans at the Nowra war memorial to mark the occasion. The Shoalhaven City Pipes and Drums, which is predominantly current or former Defence members, played The battle's o'er, and the Nowra and Bomaderry RSL sub-branches managed to put together a fitting yet safe tribute.

Last Tuesday I joined the Sussex Inlet RSL sub-branch for a combined commemorative service to mark Vietnam Veterans' Day, National Servicemens' Day, the Korean War ceasefire day and VP Day. I was absolutely honoured to present special commemorative medallions to some of our surviving World War II veterans as well as saluting their service awards to 18 local veterans. It was a moving and special service. At sunset I joined with the Shoalhaven Vietnam Veterans' Association to honour those who had made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. It was fantastic to see a good community turnout as well as many local veterans. Our community holds great pride for our veterans, and it was so devastating to miss out on Anzac Day this year. While all these services were smaller than they might usually have been, it was fantastic to see them go ahead in a COVIDSafe manner. Thank you to all the sub-branches across the South Coast for your efforts to ensure these special occasions were given the attention they deserve. It is incredibly vital that we do not forget the service and sacrifice of those who selflessly fought for our country to ensure future generations could have the freedom that we enjoy today. To mark the 75th anniversary of the end of the war, the Australian government has now made a special commemorative medallion and certificate available to every living Second World War veteran. I would be absolutely honoured to help any South Coast veteran or their family apply to receive one of these, and I encourage you to contact my office for support.

It is for all of these reasons and more that we need to understand where our veterans are. We need to make sure our local services are targeted where they are needed—support like health and mental health services, housing and employment. Our community on the South Coast has a number of veterans groups trying to fill that hole themselves, offering advocacy, support and guidance where they can. I have spoken in this House before about the Keith Payne VC Veterans Benefits Group that is doing amazing things to help local veterans. People like Fred Campbell and Rick Meehan are dedicating their lives to it. All of the local RSL sub-branches, and I have visited so many of them, are doing this incredible work. I will always stand with them in their quest to ensure that no local veterans fall through the cracks, but more needs to be done.

The Veterans Wellbeing Centre in Nowra will be an amazing community hub for local veterans, but we are still waiting for crucial details like the location. Most importantly, we still do not have a final date of when this centre will be operational. While I absolutely welcome this change to the census, we still have a long way to go. I will keep working with local veterans and their advocates to ensure they are getting the support they need. I also want to sincerely thank all of our remarkable veterans and serving Defence Force members for dedicating your lives to protecting us. Your service and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support this motion and note it not only is applicable on a census but also honours families. My family has had a long history in the Defence Force. My father came from New Zealand but my grandfather on the other side was obviously an Australian. My grandfather on my father's side started at the very bottom, a regular in the artillery. He went through the First World War—through Gallipoli and the Western Front, where he got a DCM. Between the wars, he maintained himself and stayed full time with the Army. In the Second World War, he was chasing the Japanese around the Pacific, right up to Guadalcanal. At one stage, he got a DCM, a Distinguished Conduct Medal, for bravery under fire on the Western Front. He arrived at Gallipoli on the first day and left on the last. All the way through, he had a distinguished career. At one stage in the Second World War, he was declared missing. In fact, they went to my grandmother and told her that he was missing only for him to be later discovered. I think the story was he was in a boat with two Islanders, they discovered where to find an island and got the boat they were in back there. He had a distinguished career. My father was repatriated after getting smashed up; an anti-aircraft gun was on a crane and it swung back and hit him against a wall, taking out his leg. He was on embarkation at the Italian Peninsula. My other grandfather was in the Air Force, but he was a wireless operator on the Western Front. He joined when he was 16, and he looked 16. He lied to go off to war. My grandmother—she was English—had seven brothers who were all killed over a range of conflicts, so the story goes. What this means is it's not only within a nation but within families themselves, which have a strong connection to the Defence Force.

For my very, very, very small part, I joined the Army Reserve—1809842 is my rego number. That was just really to show that you did your bit, knowing full well the only thing below me in the Army Reserve was a boiled potato. I recognise that. But still, I think it is important that everybody does their bit. Therefore, I think it's important for the nation that, if you believe in this country, you've got to put your money where your mouth is. Obviously, service for your nation is something that's incredibly important. Other people do it in other ways. They might do it in charity groups. They might do it in the police force. They do other things that take that next step, because this nation is made up of three different groups of people. One group of people throw papers out the window of a car because they really don't care about the nation, and they're always going to be with us and there's nothing you can do about them. There's another group of people who complain about the papers that are out on the road and talk about how bad other people are. But then there's a special group of people who go out and pick up the papers and don't complain about it. It's the paper picker-uppers in our nation which make this nation a strong place, and a big group of them are people who serve in our Defence Force because they are doing extra, beyond what is asked of them. We see them all around and a lot of the times we don't recognise them. My partner's brother did ten years in the Navy. I know she had another brother who enlisted in the Army for a period. All these people really could have had greater opportunities had they just stayed on 'civi' street, had they stayed in many instances to go on and get a trade or to go to university. But there's something that inspires people for the sake of our nation to join up, as they'd say. So I think that this is a good move. I think it hopefully inspires other people to take that next step, because, unless we have people who are prepared to serve our nation and protect our nation, then, by the hard lesson of history, there will come a time where you won't have a nation because you'll have no-one to protect that nation. We can all see that, with the passing of Pax Americana—you'd have to say that that is happening—we're coming to a more precarious time. So, once more, we are going to have to, in a vastly more deliberate way, call on Australians, both men and women, to serve our nation so as our nation can be sustained.

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.