Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to speak this evening on this important piece of legislation, the Australian Veterans’ Recognition (Putting Veterans and Their Families First) Bill 2019, and in doing so reflect on a number of important points. The first is that there's never too much that this country can do to honour the past service of men and women of the Australian Defence Force. This bill is an important part of what should always be regarded as an ongoing process of honouring the service and the sacrifice of veterans in our community.

I paid very close attention to Senator Lambie's contribution, because Senator Lambie's contribution was important, for one reason. While I would have differed in the way that Senator Lambie communicated the issue, the reality is that for some members of the veteran community their experience with the Department of Veterans' Affairs has not always been smooth. They can at times feel that their concerns and particular circumstances are not being listened to, that they are not being understood and on occasion that they might even be being ignored. I think that's an important aspect to be constantly alert to—and I'll come to why that is important in a moment.

The second comment I'd like to make is that this is an important bill, and I think that's demonstrated by the large number of senators who want to make a contribution to the debate on this bill, because it does honour veterans. It honours their families. It honours veterans, past and present. Of course, it also recognises that across our country the Returned and Services League plays a very important part in being a voice for the concerns of veterans and plays a very important part in giving life to the symbolism when we come to honour the sacrifice of veterans—very, very important. While Senator Lambie's concern with this bill was in part, in her view, because it was heavily symbolic, I think that symbolism in this particular area of our community is still a very important part of what should be an ongoing process of constant recognition.

On this bill I speak with a bit of personal circumstance. My father served in Vietnam. He was a regular Army man who was asked by this country's government to go and stand up for certain values in Vietnam. He went to Vietnam and did his service. While he was in Vietnam he was engaged to my mother. When I think about the service of Vietnam veterans in particular, I also think about the difficulty that partners, indeed fiancees, as was the case in my mother and father's situation, who had to live in a community like Australia in the very late sixties and early seventies and had to endure the remoteness of their loved ones serving in a country like Vietnam at a time when parts of our country and parts of our community perhaps did not show much compassion for the service of regular Army men, as was the case with my father.

The situation in my family was further compounded when my father's younger brother was conscripted to serve in Vietnam. When I think about the contribution that veterans make in our community, I'm someone who does pay close attention and who has always had a keen interest in the history of the First and Second World Wars. But when I think about veterans issues I see them through the lens of my father's own experience. My father is now in his late 70s. His service in Vietnam is something we don't talk about in our household. I think that for me and my brother and sister and my mother we've learnt, not formally but informally, that there's still a lot of healing to be done on my father's part. I've never asked my father about the elements that are contained in this particular bill. I have never asked my father about his view on the Australian veterans' covenant, and I don't think that matters so much because I know at different points of time members of the veterans' community come to deal with issues, take opportunities, as symbolic as they might be in this particular case, and, in their own time, they find an opportunity to use things like this, a pin, a veterans' card, a commitment, an oath, as part of their own journey in better understanding the tremendous contribution and sacrifice they have made in pursuing what were objectives of the government and the Australian community at that particular point in time. So I'm someone who thinks that initiatives contained in this bill are symbolic. They may not mean a lot to some people in our community, but to others they mean a great deal. I think it's worth remembering that 166,000 veterans are currently supported by the Department of Veterans' Affairs in our community, and 117,000 dependents of those veterans are supported by the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Veterans, or the character of veterans, continue to change as the nature of our commitment internationally changes. The experience of veterans in the First World War and the Second World War was very different from the experience of veterans in the Korean conflict or the Vietnam War and, again, very different from the experiences of younger, modern veterans, let's call them, who have left service after making important contributions in helping to resolve the conflict in the Middle East.

This is a bill that is worthy of debate. I'm personally satisfied and pleased at the number of coalition senators that have put their names on the speaking list to contribute to honouring veterans and the organisations that support veterans, like the RSL in Albany, with which I know Senator Brockman has a very close association, and the Highgate RSL, of which I'm an associate member. Some of those members of the Highgate RSL were recognised in the Queen's Birthday honours list that was announced just recently. So this is an important opportunity to recognise that recognition of veterans' service is something that should be ongoing and constantly a top-of-mind issue for not just the coalition government but, I would hope, all future governments.

In regard to this bill, there are a couple of specific comments I'd like to make. The first is around the Australian Defence Veterans' Covenant, something that I recall Senator McGrath having advanced and advocated for a number of years ago, if I recall correctly. The Australian Defence Veterans' Covenant recognises and acknowledges the unique nature of military service and the contribution veterans and their families have made to our country. Legislating a covenant has been a priority for the veterans community for some years and is something the Morrison government is pleased to be able to deliver on after what has been considerable consultation within the Australian community. The covenant is supported by the Veterans' Recognition Program, which includes the veterans card, lapel pin and oath. These provide a way for Australians to identify a veteran and to acknowledge publicly or privately, depending on the circumstance, his or her service when they're not in uniform or wearing their medals.

I'm particularly pleased that this covenant initiative has been endorsed by employers, businesses, local community groups and the broader Australian public, who will be encouraged to support veterans and acknowledge their service through initiatives that encourage veterans and their families to connect with their community. Businesses and communities will also be encouraged to show their support for veterans by offering benefits or concessions for veteran card holders. Any benefits or concessions provided will be at the discretion of participating businesses and organisations, and I do think that's an important element of this initiative. Each business, organisation or community group will also receive information about how they can better support the covenant as the level of public awareness, endorsement and embracement of this initiative progresses in the community.

I'm not too sure whether Senator Lambie mentioned this in her contribution, but I think the recent Productivity Commission report on veterans' issues with the Department of Veterans' Affairs is going to be a very important document which will enliven the debate about how we better support the Australian veterans community. Already I've received a number of representations from veterans communities and veterans' representatives who are not convinced by the recommendations and the approach the Productivity Commission report has taken. I have given people a personal commitment that, as the son of a veteran, I will be paying very close attention to the concerns, the ideas and the points of view of veterans communities when it comes to framing a legislative response to the Productivity Commission report.

I am someone who generally thinks that the work of the Productivity Commission is necessary and is to be applauded. The Productivity Commission process did give us an outcome on the GST issue, which I thought was very, very important in the Western Australian context, but it does not mean that the Productivity Commission is infallible. It does not mean that every proposition or every answer that the Productivity Commission provides is without contest. I'm someone, like I said, who has given communities a commitment that I'll be paying very, very close attention to that Productivity Commission report, the government's response and what we might find in legislation.

I didn't have the opportunity this evening to listen to the first speech of the new member for Stirling, Mr Vince Connelly—