Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I proudly rise to support the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme Amendment Bill 2022, as it demonstrates that the Albanese government is showing up for those who are serving and those who have served our country. I reiterate the acknowledgement of service given by previous members speaking on this bill and add my voice to those remarks.

The bill will provide and help fulfil a range of recommendations from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide to better support those who have served. We need to move quickly because there is a real sense of urgency about this. Far too many veterans and current service personnel are falling through the cracks and not getting the support that was promised to them. We have to improve the government's capacity to support ex-service personnel, and we must act quickly because the lack of action over the last couple of years has been nothing short of disappointing. We also know that this bill will help with personnel retention in military service. This is a key priority for this government and an important factor in making sure Australia's defence capabilities are strong and growing every day. This is one of a number of measures we are taking, and we are working with Defence to fix the current issues. I want to stress the importance of pushing this bill through to help with those objectives.

The Albanese government is determined to do better for those who are doing so much and have given so much for our country. This is especially important in communities around McEwen, where we have a high proportion of Defence housing in places like Mernda and Doreen. These housing opportunities not only give stability and opportunity to ex-service personnel but also help grow and enrich our community.

I support the bill because I'm passionate about supporting veterans, but also because I know that supporting and giving veterans the stability they need ultimately has a positive impact. This bill delivers on another one of the Albanese Labor government's election promises. We know that veterans and many service personnel have been overlooked and at times forgotten. With the cost of living rising and housing affordability being a huge issue across all of Australia, these factors are felt keenly by those who have served, which is why our government is prioritising this legislation.

We are implementing this policy to be as effective as possible by tackling this with a four-pronged approach. This can be summarised as: expanding the access to the scheme, taking the time restrictions off when people can apply, fixing the current ongoing subsidy issues and addressing the administrative processes that need to be updated.

The Labor government is committed to improving this program to make it more effective and, frankly, to help more people. We are doing this by increasing early access to the scheme, allowing defence personnel to have access to the benefits of this scheme earlier in their service. Practically, what it means is that those who are in full-time service will have access within two years of service and those who are in part-time service will have access within four years. This will have a run-on effect of decreasing the time that people will be eligible for the subsidy tiers, allowing members and ex-service personnel to have better access to the scheme more quickly.

This will be retroactive for those who have left the Defence Force for compensatable reasons and didn't qualify for the scheme. It will help push those eligible up to another tier, due to their time of previous service. This is tackling the issue of many previous personnel having slipped through the cracks.

It will give more opportunity for stability when people leave the Defence Force and undertake the big task of re-engaging in civilian life. Numerous reports have come out recently saying that it can take years in some cases, and veterans might have to work many years through that transition into civilian life. So the bill is removing the condition that veterans must apply within five years of leaving the Defence Force. We all know what the frequent moving that comes from being a member of the Defence Force means. It can take time to establish roots and find a place that can provide the best opportunity for people to transition out of military life. The removal of the time constraint will allow veterans not to rush into the scheme. And this is an acknowledgement that the circumstances of defence personnel and their families' lifestyles are incredibly unique and involve different challenges to settling down.

Growing up in Broadmeadows, we often had a school full of what we called 'Army brats' who were in and out. By the time many of these kids were in year 8 they'd travelled the country and been to nine or 10 different schools. We know the issue that caused the families then, not only just for the kids but also for their parents—particularly for the parent who wasn't a member of the Defence Force. Being shifted around and then trying to create new connections in a new community and develop that was very hard. That's why we've also got to extend this service to the surviving partners, who have similarly been impacted by the nature of having partners who've served in the military. It's so important for families to be able to have those roots and those connections.

One of the big issues facing Defence today is the shortage of personnel entering our defence forces and staying. It's getting that stability, trying to find those roots where you can settle down, give your kids the opportunity that we all want and think we all deserve but also dealing with the uniqueness that is ADF life, where you're not in the one place all the time and you're going to be moved around.

These challenges are hard, which is why locally we push really hard to try to get as much information as we can about Defence homes in our area, to make sure that as new people come in we can give them the opportunity by saying just the simple things like, 'Here's your local Men's Shed,' or 'Here's your local social services,' or 'Here are the better pizza shops.' These are all things that, when you move into a community, make a local community, but it also gives them the opportunity to meet up with social groups and like-minded people, ensuring that, when they come into our communities, they feel welcome, they feel part of us and they enjoy their time there, because we know—as is the nature of defence—that they're going to move on eventually. But if we can make their time and stay in our communities better, then that's a very positive thing that we can do for defence personnel and their families. This is a sensible and responsible approach in making sure that we provide stability and look after their families, even during a transitional period.

In addition to those measures, the bill tackles the shortfalls in current legislation by creating a power to make sure that there is a way to continue paying subsidy amounts even when an error might have been made. It will mean that people who are recipients of the scheme are protected from administrative mistakes that can suddenly make the entire subsidised amounts due. The hole in the legislation put people who were in precarious financial positions under unnecessary stress. This measure is responding to concerns raised by Defence, and the government is doing what it does in acting quickly to make sure no more personnel are put under the unnecessary stress that comes from being suddenly cut off through no fault of their own. The current inflexibility does not allow for human error and genuine human mistakes, with many people being taken off the scheme for small personal mistakes or mistakes made by a third party. As we know, we need to have that human interaction when we're doing these things so we don't end up with robodebt situations where automatic things are done, you have no say in it and you get the bill later on. That is unacceptable and easily avoidable. Allowing some room for genuine error is only right and fair.

This bill seeks to support the administrative side of the scheme and create a process to adjust payments that have already been made. It will allow for both the making and the recovery of any payments that are out of order. We are making sure there are proper processes and guarantees of good governance and transparency to make sure that this scheme is doing its job. This small change will not only streamline the process to handle any issues, taking stress off recipients in the scheme, but also ensure that the scheme is working effectively. If passed, this legislation will come into effect on 1 January 2023. That cannot come soon enough.

We are making sure that anyone who has missed out due to the previous restrictions and policy gaps can be allowed to resubmit their applications. This is a testament to this government's commitment to making sure that current and future defence personnel are actually receiving the support they deserve. We know the sacrifices they've made can have huge impacts on the lives and livelihoods of those who have served. So the Albanese government is working hard to reduce those challenges.

I do acknowledge that the opposition is supporting the bill. That's important. I think it shows that we can have bipartisan bills where we sit there and focus on what is right and what is fair rather than on what is politically good. There are many veterans that we deal with every single day who have suffered dramatically through their time in service. The more that we can do to help them and help support their transition back into civilian life to be active and positive members of our community—we should be doing more of that. It's important for us as legislators to make sure that we do the right thing when we see there's a problem and act quickly to say, 'We know this is an issue. We've got to fix it and fix it quickly.' I think that's what we've seen being done in this. Within five months in office, we've brought this in and we'll bring this forward. It's part of a program that's focusing on veterans.

In saying that, I think of Minister Keogh yesterday. We had a veteran who'd been waiting over 1,000 days to have his claim heard—not even approved; just to have it heard. That's just appalling. That is not what we should be doing. I don't think any of us sitting in this room would say that that's fair and reasonable. The DVA has had a real problem in the way that it has been working with veterans and how it has been supporting veterans. Through contacting Minister Keogh directly, we were able to make sure this veteran had his claim not only assessed but approved in 24 hours. For nearly three years, this poor fellow had been under stress, waiting. But he's not alone. He's one of many who are going through this situation. He is one of many who have been suffering because of the backlog that is being worked through at the DVA. That's something we've really noticed. We often say, 'Change the government, change the nation.' Well, we've seen a change of government, a change of minister and a change to a positive attitude.

I know there are many other veterans out there who are in this desperate situation, but we have to do everything we can to work together to get this sorted as quickly as possible. It is important that governments always stand to support the wellbeing of veterans and defence personnel. It is why I support this bill. I hope that we can have a speedy passage of this bill and get it through so that we can get things rolling as quickly as possible together as an entire parliament to do the right thing for the people from whom we expect so much.

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

I rise to commend the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme Amendment Bill 2022 to the House and reiterate the excellent contribution made by the member for Herbert in the chamber earlier today as the shadow minister responsible for this area, along with the member for New England. I would like to start, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, by thanking you and all those in this parliament who served our nation for that service. We are debating bills relating to supporting our veterans and, obviously, they are extremely important. We are also very lucky that the debates are so well-informed by members of the House and the other chamber who are veterans, who have served our nation and who have their own significant experience of the challenges that veterans face and the ways in which we can do better. We all know that we can do better for veterans; indeed, we have a royal commission under way into veteran suicide which will report when it is ready. I am sure that is going to have recommendations that we as a parliament will need to engage on. I would hope that reform in an area like veterans' affairs is almost always something that is bipartisan. We shouldn't even use the term 'bipartisan' anymore, because, I suppose, it should be unanimous within the chamber from all members.

This is a bill that I am quite confident all members of the House will be very comfortable supporting. It loosens the criteria that is in place to support veterans to buy a home. How could anyone oppose that? It is excellent that the scheme has been in place since, I believe, 1991, from memory. It has been reformed over the years, but this is an opportunity for us to improve and increase the support that is provided to veterans to buy a home.

We in the coalition always look for opportunities to do more to support our veterans who have served our nation. We are also very supportive of home ownership and of helping anyone, not just veterans, with the really important economic security that comes from buying a home. Veterans obviously have unique challenges in buying a home by the very nature of their service in the armed forces. It is likely that they won't have an enormous amount of control over where they may be posted to or deployed to, whether that is within country or overseas, and that is a unique disruption that not many other people experience in their careers. If we all think about the logical progression in our adult lives towards the security of buying a home, that is particularly disrupted if you are serving in the armed forces and you don't have an enormous amount of certainty about where you will be stationed or deployed to, not only where that might be but how frequently that might change. It would be very difficult to make a commitment towards housing at times—not always, but at times—in line with what those of us who don't have that uncertainty in where we will be domiciled on an ongoing basis will have. The scheme really does recognise and support the fact that it is more difficult for those who serve our nation to be able to, with the same amount of certainty, enter the housing market. It, therefore, provides support to overcome that.

I know that Defence have made the point in reviews, in estimates et cetera that retention is as much a focus for them as recruitment. Initiatives towards retention in some circumstances are more important than recruitment. We obviously want to help and support those who join the armed forces to stay for as long as we can keep them for, given the enormous amount of resources put into recruitment and training. Providing more secure economic certainty for them and pathways after they leave the services makes sense to assist in the retention of service personnel. The logic of that has been clear by the reality that we've had this scheme since 1991. There is a lot of sense in helping to improve access, expand access and make it a lot more straightforward for veterans to access the scheme. The bill achieves exactly that. Further reform in this area may well come to light based on the outcomes of the royal commission.

All members of parliament have veteran communities. I'm sure we all engage with them very deeply and thoroughly. Sometimes that is in important acts of commemoration, like the one we will have this Friday for Remembrance Day. I am sure most members, like me, have more than one RSL in their electorate. We do our best to get to as many of those commemorative events as we can at various times through the year. In this country Remembrance Day is very significant, but there is also Anzac Day, Vietnam Veterans' Day and more. I have in my electorate the suburb of Dernancourt, which is named after a village in the north of France where there was very significant Australian engagement in the First World War. We would all have similar specific commemorations that occur, depending on our electorate.

We engage with our veterans through those opportunities but also of course sometimes, regrettably, we engage with veterans when they need help and support. At times that is helping them navigate some of the challenges in dealing with the government in getting access to the services that they are quite rightly entitled to. The member for McEwen, the previous speaker, had a specific example that he is quite rightly proud of. He assisted a veteran who was struggling to get an outcome through the bureaucracy. Equally, I'm sure any member of parliament has at times had veteran constituents who needed their support to get access to the services that they absolutely deserve and the supports that they need.

In my view this bill also goes towards the prevention of future risk to veterans. The economic security of home ownership is certainly a big part of the sort of support that we haven't always provided to veterans. We haven't always done as good a job as we could have and that can exacerbate some of the challenges that they have in re-entering civilian life after their service. Economic security is always going to be front and centre to that. The challenges in getting access to government services exacerbates that.

In my view the economic security of owning a home will go a long way to helping more veterans have the support that they need for the life that they create after their service to our nation. We know the value of home ownership in any circumstance. It is extremely reassuring and, in fact, relieving. It puts people in a position to have the sort of stability that they would hope to have in the life that they are creating for themselves after serving our nation. With those comments I commend the bill to the chamber.

Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 6.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192(b). The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.