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

I join in strongly supporting the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill 2017. This is something I negotiated in good faith with the government as a constructive measure that needed to be implemented. Successive governments have done a great wrong to those Australians exposed to nuclear tests, and this bill will help to rectify that to some degree for those surviving nuclear test veterans. Fewer than 2,000 are still alive today. We are fast running out of time to exercise our duty of care to these brave Australians and this goes some considerable way to at least acknowledging the wrong that was done. What has frustrated the nuclear veterans that I have spoken to is that they have, for such a long time, felt that governments have not properly or adequately recognised their adverse health outcomes and provided them with adequate assistance. This gold card goes some considerable way to acknowledging that. The fact is there are veterans who were clad in just T-shirts and shorts when exposed to nuclear blasts, while the scientists wore protective clothing. The contrast could not have been greater.

I commend the government and I thank the government for the constructive way in which we worked together on this issue. This goes some way to rectifying a terrible wrong and I commend this government for making a breakthrough in relation to this piece of legislation. It is a fair piece of legislation. We are, at last, doing the right thing by our nuclear test veterans.