Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our veterans are waiting too long for assistance and are being let down by this Morrison-Joyce government. Claims processing by the Department of Veterans' Affairs is far too slow, and the department needs more staff to process a growing backlog of claims—and I'm glad the minister is sitting opposite. The so-called funding boost to help DVA speed up claims that was announced in the budget was a temporary two-year funding increase. It was a political fix to help the government get through to the next election. It has gotten so bad that the government's own MPs can't ignore the crisis any longer. The LNP member for Herbert called out his own government for failing veterans and their families, as reported in the Australian on 11 January this year. He considered that DVA has too many poorly trained casual staff and needs more well-paid, highly trained permanent workers to process claims faster.

The reality is that the member for Herbert and the government of which he is a part of have failed to fix the problems, whether they're in Townsville or in my home city of Ipswich. It's gotten worse under this government's watch. I've heard stories from veterans and their families waiting up to 18 months to get assistance. In some cases, it's taken four years if a veteran challenges the decision from DVA through the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a body stacked with Liberal Party mates.

Veterans and their families will remember that the Prime Minister had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. It's no wonder that, given the evidence from the hearings of the royal commission late last year in Brisbane confirmed what many veterans already knew, they were suffering terrible psychological harm and have had to wait too long to get much-needed benefits. The commission heard that DVA set itself a 100-day target to deliver benefits, but more than double that in recent years, to 200 days, and, in some cases, up to 14 months. The next round of hearings at the royal commission starts in Sydney next week. I encourage all veterans and families to tell their stories, make a submission and appear as witnesses.

The government knows that there's a serious political problem on its hands, and veterans are fed up. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs ordered a so-called overhaul of the veterans’ welfare system in October last year. When the minister announced a $1.3 million review of DVA claims processing systems to be undertaken by one of the preferred consultants, McKinsey, he said it would report in December last year. It's now February and there’s still no word of the audit findings or recommendations. Once again, all announcements and no delivery from this government. We know this is a government addicted to secrecy, but, if they were fair dinkum about fixing this problem and putting veterans first, they would release the report immediately. Veterans have a right to know where this supposed reform of the system is up to and what it will deliver. I say to the minister: show us the report; release it and consult with the Labor opposition so that we can work together on this issue.

In response to Labor's questions in the last Senate estimates about waiting times, it was revealed that backlogs have increased from the period 30 June 2021 to 30 September 2021. The data shows that the average time to process veterans’ disability pensions had jumped from 226 days to 271 days. In addition, average processing times for initial liability claims under the DRCA legislation had blown out from 245 days to 305 days and under the MRCA legislation from 233 days to 255 days. The number of claims on hand under both acts has increased as well. Labor was sceptical of the McKinsey review as it failed to look at the key drivers of long-claim processing times and backlog, which is the impact of chronic staff shortages in DVA.

A recent Labor initiated Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee inquiry into the Public Service found the long delays with veterans claims are the direct result of the government's ideological cap on permanent public servants, which has forced DVA to rely on high levels of poorly trained labour hire contractors. Most Australians would be shocked to know that the Prime Minister is allowing the public service jobs in DVA and other agencies to be outsourced like this, all because he stubbornly refuses to dump this ridiculous staffing cap policy. While it’s supposed to save money, outsourcing labour hire arrangements actually costs more money than employing permanent staff, thanks to exorbitant fees and premiums paid to labour hire firms. But we didn't need an expensive consultant's review to tell us this. This is just another example of this terrible government wasting taxpayers' money and not being on the side of veterans. After nine long years, they've got no plan to fit these dangerous, long waiting times for assistance in DVA. It's not good enough, and our veterans deserve better.