Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to make a brief contribution on this Australian Veterans' Recognition (Putting Veterans and Their Families First) Bill. I wasn't planning to make a contribution. It was hearing Senator Lambie's contribution, actually, that made me decide to speak. I absolutely respect Senator Lambie's service to this nation and the contribution she made, and there is something that happened to me which I wish to describe to the Senate. In essence, this bill is about respect and recognition, Senator Lambie, and respect and recognition are very important to service men and women, and very important to their families, and that's why I wish to describe something that happened to me relatively recently, on becoming a senator for Western Australia.

It's a somewhat convoluted story, but it started with a letter to the editor in The Canberra Times. The letter was from a woman who lived in Western Australia, and she wanted a poppy put in the wall of remembrance to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of her grandfather's death. Obviously, as she was based in Western Australia, she couldn't get to Canberra herself, so she put that letter to the editor in The Canberra Times, asking if there was anyone in Canberra who could perhaps go to the wall of remembrance on the 100th anniversary of his death and place a poppy there.

How did I get involved as a relatively new senator? Someone living in Canberra who was a former colleague and a friend of my wife's happened to see that letter and happened to be researching her own grandfather's service in World War I, service that was based out of Western Australia as well. Having got her grandfather's records, my wife's friend realised that her grandfather and the grandfather of the woman who had put the letter in The Canberra Times had served together. They'd trained together at Blackboy Hill, which was a training camp in Western Australia, before shipping out to the battlefields. My wife's friend also realised that their commanding officer was Edmund Drake-Brockman, a relative of mine—a great-great-uncle. The Drake-Brockman and Brockman families are very closely related. My great-great-uncle had been the commanding officer of her grandfather and of the deceased service person who the woman was seeking recognition of on the 100th anniversary of his death.

Whilst this chain of events is not unusual in Australia—we all know that there is only one or two degrees of separation between anyone—it was a great honour for me as a newly-selected senator for Western Australia at that point to be able to organise for someone in Canberra to place a poppy in the wall of remembrance on the 100th anniversary of that serviceman's death. It meant a lot to the family involved. But I think this is the nicest part of this story. I got a staffer in this building—Philippa Campbell, who many on this side would know—to take a poppy to the wall of remembrance. She found on that day 10 poppies in the wall of remembrance. Ten poppies had been taken there by people in Canberra who had read that letter in The Canberra Times. They had of their own volition gone to the wall of remembrance on that day to honour the wishes of the grandchild of a deceased veteran.

I say again: respect and recognition are important. They are an important part of what we do for our veterans. I think that it is important to remember that when we honour our veterans, in many different ways, it is to say thank you for the service that they have provided to the nation and to say thank you to their families for the service that they have provided to this nation. It's a very important part of what we do as a government. It's not the only thing though. As I have talked about in this place before, it's easy to single out one thing that the government are doing and try to criticise it and to pretend that that one thing we are doing is reflective of all we are doing. That is clearly not the case in this space.

Australian veterans are a focus of this government. We will continue to see an improvement in support and services for veterans, including through the $11.5 billion in funding allocated in the 2019-20 budget. This funding represents an overall increase of $300 million allocated to the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the DVA, in 2019-20 compared to 2018-19 to support our veterans and their families. The 2019-20 budget is focused on putting veterans and their families first and continues to see investment designed to transform the DVA. I think everyone knows that there have been failings in the past. This government is committed to continuing to improve that level of service and continuing to improve that level of support for all of our veterans.

We need to make it easier and faster for veterans to access the services that they need. The minister has made very clear that this is a top priority for them. It includes really basic things—and, yes, they are basic. The 1800VETERAN line, introducing a single contact phone number, is a very simple but very effective way to ensure that our veterans right across Australia have straightforward easy access to the services and supports that they require. Every veteran, no matter where they live, should have better access to the DVA. This is being achieved through partnering with the Department of Human Services. The Department of Human Services obviously has a very large footprint across Australia and, by giving veterans access to those services through the Department of Human Services, we take the supports that the veterans want and need to more places and make them more easy to access.

There's also going to be an agent network and mobile service centres. There's investment in making sure that online claims processing is more straightforward and simplified and that veterans can access the information and services they require online. Again, this is a very important change in the way people are accessing their services. It is something that veterans have asked for, and it is something that the government is, again, delivering on. A one-off energy assistance payment will be provided to more than 225,000 veterans and widows who receive support payments—a payment worth $75 for singles and $125 for couples.

This is all focused on one very simple thing, something that many of my colleagues have said tonight, and that is about putting veterans first. It's about putting veterans' families first. That is why we as a government are continuing to invest in the veteran community and their families. We continue to provide the services that veterans need, that they want and that we continue to develop and supply—again, $11.5 billion in services and support, relied on by 280,000 veterans and their families. This is a significant part of the Australian community and a very important part—and one that this nation relies on in the toughest of times. It's certainly true that when we think of our veterans we think about the extraordinary contribution they have made in so many different ways. Earlier today I spoke about Timor-Leste, and we all know of the extraordinary service that our serving men and women at that time put in to ensure that our near neighbour was able to have a smooth transition to democracy at a time when that wasn't necessarily an obvious outcome.

So, in concluding, this is important reform. It is about respect and recognition of our veterans, and all those who have contributed on this side have a very clear view of the importance of that and the importance of the bill.