Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will be voting against the disallowance motion with respect to the Family Law (Superannuation) (Provision of Information—Military Superannuation and Benefits Scheme) Amendment Determination 2016.

I will be voting against this because it is nothing more than a stunt, plain and simple. Here comes One Nation! It is a stunt! One Nation know that even if it were still able to be disallowed, what they are proposing will not make one single bit of difference in the life of a single veteran in this country. Not one!

When Senator Kakoschke-Moore, the NXT and I originally proposed this disallowance motion it was to provide the Queensland branch of the Returned Services League of Australia some time to consider the Attorney-General's determination and any implications that would be attached to that. RSL Queensland and other ex-service organisations have expressed valid concerns about how the family law superannuation-splitting regime is being applied with respect to military invalidity pensions. These concerns are valid and deserve to be explored, but this disallowance motion does absolutely nothing to explore them. That is because the determination itself does not alter the means of dealing with the family law superannuation-splitting rule as to military invalidity pensions, which under existing law are considered superannuation interests and remain splittable.

When I realised that the determination will not alter the splitting rule I withdrew from the disallowance motion, along with Senator Kakoschke-Moore. I have asked the government to provide a written assurance, as has Senator Kakoschke-Moore, that it will consider the underlying policy of whether military invalidity pensions should form part of the family law superannuation-splitting rule in circumstances where they are reviewable. That is what is actually needed to make a real difference here—a real difference to veterans' lives.

The veteran community is sick of being played for fools like this. Veterans who have served their country deserve better from One Nation than to be treated like pawns in a political stunt, which is all this is this afternoon. It is a political stunt and they are using veterans as pawns. One Nation need to stand up and own the fact that they know that what they are doing here will achieve absolutely nothing. I would expect, further on, that they would apologise for their actions to every Australian veteran out there. Anything less will be more of the same from the party that likes to pretend they care about veterans only when there is a camera trained on them or they can get attention. Cheap votes from veterans!

Not only does this achieve nothing, it promises false hope to those who actually need our help here. It is a disgraceful, cynical and shocking display of One Nation using the veteran community for their own political gain, and it will make absolutely no difference to a veteran. Veterans do not need any more empty promises and useless gestures. They need our help, and this does nothing to help them.

Some of us in this place actually give a damn about making a difference. Some of us take the work we are doing here seriously. Stop wasting our time with these useless stunts and stop using veterans as a chance to get your names in the newspaper. Shame on you! They deserve better and Australia deserves better. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Do you know what blows me away even more? These are the same people who pulled a political stunt on the veterans, pretending they actually cared about them. They did a big thing on Facebook here not that long ago, calling veterans in and pretending that they cared about their PTSD. And yet not one of them has shown up at the veterans' suicide inquiry. Not one!

If this is not a political stunt and using a veteran as a pawn, I do not know what is. But I will tell you what: today, you are an absolute disgrace in my eyes and those of many veterans out there and this will come back to bite you. You deserve everything you get.