Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move request (2) on sheet 7131:

Page 18 (after line 27), at the end of the bill, add:

Schedule 4—Nuclear test participants

Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986

1 After subsection 85(10)

Insert:

(10A) A person is eligible to be provided with treatment under this Part for any injury suffered, or disease contracted, by the person, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, if:

  (a) the person is a nuclear test participant (within the meaning of the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Act 2006); and

  (b) either:

     (i) the Department has notified the person in writing that he or she is or will be eligible for such treatment; or

     (ii) the person has, by written document lodged at an office of the Department in Australia in accordance with section 5T, notified the Department that he or she seeks eligibility for such treatment.

The statement of reasons accompanying the request read as follows—

Statement pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

These amendments are framed as requests because they increase expenditure under a standing appropriation. The effect of amendment (2) would be to expand the class of persons – to include a person who is a nuclear test participant (within the meaning of the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Act 2006) – who would be eligible for the Repatriation Health Card—For All Conditions (Gold Card) under the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986. Amendment (1) is consequential upon amendment (2) and should therefore also be treated as a request.

Statement by the Clerk of the Senate pursuant to the order of the Senate of 26 June 2000

The Senate has long followed the practice that it should treat as requests amendments which would result in increased expenditure under a standing appropriation. On the basis that amendment (2) would result in increased expenditure under the standing appropriation in section 199 of the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986, and on the basis that amendment (1) is consequential on amendment (2), it is in accordance with the precedents of the Senate that these amendments be moved as requests.

I have previously spoken in relation to this. This addition to the bill would give veterans of British nuclear tests the ability to claim for a gold card for health costs. Earlier today I referred to the need to do so, and I do not propose to unnecessarily restate that. I referred to Canon Peter Patterson, who contacted me after his application for the gold card and disability pension were denied. He was commissioned by the Australian military forces to serve at Maralinga, South Australia, for a period of 87 weeks between 1956 and 1963 as an Anglican chaplain. Mr Patterson's claims have been fraught with difficulty, because the current rules are unfair. A delegate of the Repatriation Commission was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the cirrhotic arthropathy was related to his service. We know from the medical evidence that those who have been exposed to British nuclear tests have suffered greatly. The rates of death and disability have been significant.

I am particularly grateful to Senator Macdonald's contribution on this. He quite rightly pointed out what is being done for the children of the veterans of British nuclear tests who have been born with disabilities and significant health issues. I commend Senator Macdonald for raising that, because it is an issue that cannot be ignored. I do not believe it has been dealt with adequately by Australian governments, both past and present.

This amendment is one that deals with the gold card being given to the veterans of British nuclear tests. These men and women went to Maralinga, to Emu Fields and to Montebello and were subjected to nuclear testing without anyone telling them what the health implications would be. They have suffered, much like any veteran who has been injured in war and they should be able to access all the health services they need to treat their cancers, their skin conditions and their depression. I believe this is the right thing to do.

The second reading amendment Senator Wright and I moved was lost. I do acknowledge the work that Senator Ludlam has done on this previously and the concerns that have been expressed in relation to this. But we have really dropped the ball when it comes to our veterans of British nuclear tests. There are fewer than 2,000 alive right now. They are dying off at too rapid a rate. We know that successive Australian governments have done very little to help them. We know from a media release from the law firm Stacks/Goudkamp on 29 July 2011 that Australian veterans of British nuclear tests hopes for compensation have been boosted by a UK court decision. The hopes of hundreds of Australian military veterans of British nuclear tests seeking compensation from the UK Ministry of Defence got a boost after a significant victory in the Sydney courts, because the UK Supreme Court ruled that it would allow the veterans to argue their case that they were not out of time in bringing their action. Even if veterans are successful Stacks/Goudkamp made the point that if the Supreme Court allows them to go ahead they will still have to argue their negligence case against a determined UK Ministry of Defence. Why do they have to do that? Why do they have to go down the path of seeking redress in the British court system? Why can't we do what other nations have done and provide a statutory system of compensation? The Americans, Russians and Chinese have done it for their nuclear test veterans, but here in Australia it seems we have to go cap in hand to the UK courts for an uncertain outcome and expensive, time-consuming and uncertain system of seeking justice.

Senator Macdonald has quite usefully asked me whether a costing has been done on this. We know this, and I think it is a very reasonable question. The coalition, as did the government, unfortunately opposed even a second reading amendment that would say 'let's do some costings on this.' I urge the coalition and the government to reconsider that. It is important that there be appropriate costing of that. But I still move this amendment, because I believe the principle is fundamentally right, because here we have a limited pool of people—fewer than 2,000—and what we are seeking to give them is not a pension as such but access to the gold card for health benefits, so that they do not have to go through a burden of proof in showing that they are eligible.

This is what some of the veterans have said:

This is an absolute disgrace. All the other illnesses that's brought on by exposure to radiation, we don't get treated for and that in itself is justice denied. So the real thing is the recognition, full recognition, under the Veteran Entitlements Act, but they won't recognise Maralinga as being a dangerous zone that we served in.

Another veteran said:

The only thing I can assume is that stalling for time is waiting for us all to die and they won't have to give anybody anything. Well, it is not just us, it's our children and our grandchildren that has suffered from this, that we've passed on our damaged genes, the DNA that was damaged due to radiation exposure.

Another veteran said:

Your skull seemed to light up. The whole world was going up in a fireball. It made you feel like an ant under a boot.

Another veteran said:

I had no idea when I went out to this site, nor did the chaps that I was working with know that there had been a bomb exploded there. And we set up these experiments and starting building these heavy steel firing platforms just 200 metres from ground zero.

Another victim said:

Successive governments have ordered another inquiry or another committee to be set up. Sometimes they take three to five years. That's another three to five years. In that time another 10 percent of the veterans are dead. Well, given another five years, there won't be any of us left, quite frankly.

That is why we need to at least acknowledge this, to give these veterans access to Gold Card entitlements.

This is not a radical move. This is not an expensive move. We are looking at a very small and diminishing class of people, yet we have treated them with contempt. Subsequent Australian governments have treated these people with contempt. They have served their nation. They served it in a very dangerous zone where nuclear tests were carried out, and that is why this requested amendment seeks to redress that, in part by giving them access to the gold card. It is extraordinary that the government and the opposition do not support the costing of this. They were worried about setting some precedent or about what other implications it would have. But these people deserve justice. Giving them access to the Gold Card will go some way to remedying the gross injustice that Mr Patterson and many, many others have been subjected to over the years. That is why I commend this amendment.

I acknowledge the amendment of Senator Wright, which I do not have difficulty with. I think it is a sensible amendment to say there ought to be some costing but that in any event there ought to be a cut-off for when this particular measure is implemented. It cannot be put off to the never-never. This government and the opposition stand condemned for the way they have treated our veterans of British nuclear test. This issue will not go away. Even when the last nuclear test veteran in Australia has died, you will still have to deal with their children, you will still have to deal with their memories and you will still have to deal with the fact that they have been treated very shabbily by successive Australian governments.