Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2017, specifically to support the amendments to schedule 1 and 2 of the bill. This bill seeks to make the Department of Veterans' Affairs 'digitally ready' as part of the government's digital transformation agenda. Its aim is to make legislative changes in support of planned business and ICT reforms that will reduce processing times and automate and streamline existing processes.

As previous speakers on this legislation have noted, there are three schedules that make up this bill. Schedule 1 empowers the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to authorise the use of computer programs to make decisions and determinations as part of a move to an online claims system. This seeks to make the department's business processes more 'veteran centric' and streamline the experience for veterans and their families. Schedule 2 enables the secretary of the department to disclose information about particular cases or a particular class of cases to the public. This will include the ability to disclose the personal information of veterans and ex-service personnel to the public. Schedule 3 brings the existing provisions up to date in terms of drafting precedents and practices.

Labor broadly supports schedules 1 and 3 as measures that are appropriate to the ongoing changes and challenges facing Veterans' Affairs. Schedule 2, however, is more of a fraught proposition and will require serious oversight and regulation. It is heartening to see the government learning from the previous debacles that were the 'census fail' and the Centrelink 'robo-debt' disgrace. The reason that it is heartening is that the idea that a veteran's personal details could be not leaked, not whistle-blown but officially disclosed by the Minister or the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to score points in the media is staggering. Sometimes, people in public life like to say that there are some things that are above politics, some things that we value too highly and regard with such esteem, that they should not be compromised by being used to serve a more lowly purpose. Those who have served our country, those veterans and former service personnel, are to be held in the highest regard.

Speaking of paying respect to veterans, I note with grave concern reports that Kurt Tucker, the President of the University of Queensland Liberal Club, itself a cradle for many a Liberal politician in the federal parliament and in the Parliament of Queensland, declared to his Facebook followers that he would have joined the Nazis had he lived in Germany in the 1930s. I quote:

I openly accept that I would be a Nazi Party member if this was 30's Germany, despite obviously opposing a lot of their core ideology.

I'm political, and to succeed in politics, public service, military, or even industry you had to be an NSDAP member.

I also believe 90% of … LNP members would be the same.

Could there be a more offensive formulation for the 993,000 Australians who served in the armed forces during World War II, fighting the Nazis and their allies? Some 27,073 Australians were killed in action or died; 23,477 were wounded; and 30,560 were taken prisoner of war. Of those taken prisoner, 8,296 died in captivity. Yet this aspiring Liberal politician disrespects their memory, their service and their sacrifice by saying he would have been a Nazi.

It is important that veterans and ex-service personnel who use DVA services are able to do so, knowing that their information will be kept confidential. This is one part of the legislation that the Labor Party has been very strong on and very keep to support. This legislation aims to make vets affairs 'digitally ready' so that veterans and former service personnel are helped by processing times being reduced and by automating and streamlining existing processes. It will make the processes in DVA more 'veteran centric'.

Labor has always maintained that it will not support legislation which gives the department the power to disclose individual's information, unless there is a threat to life, health or welfare. In our view, the department should not be using an individual's information to correct misinformation in the community, and we have been working with the government on the rules which accompany this legislation. The shadow minister for veterans affairs, Amanda Rishworth, in the other place, has been doing great work—