Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I can see that Senator Wong knows that she has been caught out in relation to this $1.7 billion figure. I will repeat another comment from the Actuary: ‘The expenditure is shown in nominal dollars and it has not been discounted to give a present value.’ Minister Wong, why did you not actually refer to and expand on what the Actuary told you in the document that I received. If you look at the information given by Defence to Minister Snowdon, you will see that the figures being quoted, Defence’s own figures, are indeed different to yours.

I plead with the chamber to get these matters dealt with today to give these people some fairness and to give them the same opportunities that aged-care pensioners have and service pensioners have in relation to indexation. I congratulate the shadow minister for defence science, technology and personnel, Stuart Robert, for the enormous amount of work that he has put into this. He is owed a great debt of gratitude. It is now up to the chamber to legislate this private member’s bill and to give these people the opportunity and the indexation they deserve.

Question agreed to.