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

I spoke in the parliament yesterday about the poor treatment of some of our veterans by DVA. Because one of the veterans with whom I served was visiting Parliament House yesterday, I brought him into this very chamber. His body has been permanently impacted by his service. James Duthy is a great bloke. He has permanent hearing loss and back and lower limb damage through parachuting, jungle warfare training and mortars, and as we speak he's still fighting with DVA to get proper hearing aids, even though DVA accepts responsibility for his hearing loss through his service.

James has also worked in various roles in Afghanistan to secure infrastructure and in community development roles with different NGOs. It is dangerous working in Afghanistan. Southern Afghanistan was where he spent some of that time and where his life was saved by interpreters, as I believe mine was on a couple of occasions when I was working in southern Afghanistan. There's no doubt that those who have served in Afghanistan, whether in or out of uniform, understand that the interpreters were vital to the work that we were doing, and many in my electorate feel the same.

We saw the Australian government close our embassy on Friday last week due to the deteriorating security situation and it is believed that coalition troops will be out as early as the end of next month. On behalf of my constituents, particularly those who either served in uniform in Afghanistan or worked in Afghanistan in a variety of roles, whether that be with the NGO sector protecting infrastructure or people or, indeed, with our foreign services, I want to know what assurances the Australian government is going to give those interpreters who served Australians and Australia's interests over those 20 long years. The US and UK have announced the development of their plans to evacuate thousands who assisted their troops, and I want to know if this federal government is going to do the same.

I want to acknowledge the work of veterans in my electorate who have raised this issue and are working for veterans every day. I also want to acknowledge the work of Afghan veteran Jason Scanes, who started an ex-service organisation called Forsaken Fighters with the express purpose of getting those interpreters and their immediate family members and locally engaged civilians safely out of the country. DFAT and Defence know who worked for Australia, who is at risk and how many are at risk. We have the capacity and the capability to evacuate those individuals, and we have the moral imperative to do so, so I want to see some action from the federal government in that regard.