David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to indicate that the Greens will be supporting the Defence, Veterans' and Families' Acute Support Package Bill 2022, but with some reservations and concerns.

This bill amends the Veterans' Entitlement Act 1986, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 and the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-related Claims) Act 1988. The purpose of the bill is to extend eligibility to veterans and their family members who are covered by each of those three acts. It does it for those veterans and family members who are at risk of, or in, crisis. Critically—and this is one of the key reasons the Greens support the bill—it extends the criteria for access to veterans whether or not the veteran is participating in a rehabilitation program or has rendered warlike service.

The bill is a further response to recommendation 19 of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee report, The constant battle: suicide by veterans. Suicide by veterans is a deeply, deeply tragic story in Australia. Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few decades, more veterans have lost their lives through suicide than in armed conflict. When you look at the interim report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, you will see that in many ways the system that's meant to be supporting veterans is, indeed, tearing them down. It is denying them support and putting them through torturous processes and, in far too many cases, is aggravating the harm that they suffered while on service. This bill is an attempt, at least, to respond to that in part.

Why do we have recommendation 19? And why do we have this bill? It's useful to go back to the Senate committee report to see why recommendation 19 was put in. That report said:

… a consistent theme from the evidence received was that there was a lack of support for the partners those veterans who have mental health conditions or have acquired severe disabilities arising from their service. The partners of veterans often act as the keystone of support for veterans, some as full-time or part-time carers. The situation of veterans often markedly declines when these relationships fail. In the view of the committee, this is a critical area for DVA to investigate and develop further measures of support.

And that's why we have recommendation 19, which reads:

The committee recommends that the Department of Veterans' Affairs review the support for partners of veterans to identify further avenues for assistance. This review should include services such as information and advice, counselling, peer support and options for family respite care to support partners of veterans.

A similar bill was introduced by the coalition in the last parliament—and I won't review the history; I know my colleague Senator Steele-John was critical of the delay, and for good reasons—but it was not passed before the 2022 election.

The main changes proposed through the Family Support Package are as follows: removing the eligibility requirement for veterans to have had warlike service—we give that a tick; removing the requirement for eligible veterans to be participating in a rehabilitation program—we also give that a tick; allowing veterans and families of veterans with service prior to July 2004 to access the program; and increasing the amount of assistance available and removing the limits for specific services so that families have flexibility to access the assistance they need.

The cost of this package over four years is very modest, particularly in the scale of the defence budget. One of the reasons it's modest is the limitations the government is proposing for it. A key eligibility criterion is that individuals or family members need to be in crisis or at risk of a crisis. That's not defined in the bill, and perhaps that's a good thing. It could be set out with more granularity in the documents that follow the passage of this bill. The bill also places a new age cap of 65 years to access the program. That is a red flag for us, and it's a red flag for many veterans. The current program provides access to veterans aged up to the age of disability eligibility age, which is currently 66½ years. The reason that's a red flag for us and a very real concern is that, if you go back to that same report—the Senate report, which drafted recommendation 19—the paragraph that follows that very recommendation reads:

The committee was also concerned to receive evidence regarding the challenges which may face veterans moving from DVA support into aged care. It was apparent that loss of access to services such as Veterans' Home Care and the Rehabilitation Appliances Program could have serious implications for elderly veterans transitioning to aged care. Although this was not a focus during the inquiry, the committee notes the importance of this issue given the large number of elderly veterans.

My colleague Senator Steele-John, in reviewing the coalition's bill in the last parliament—and this very closely matches the coalition's bill—had it costed what it would be to remove that age cap and retain two, three or four years of additional support and benefits to veterans. Whilst the support would require a real financial contribution from the government, the contribution would be, if you put it in the context of the defence budget, entirely appropriate to support veterans as they make that transition. Removing the age cap and providing five years of family support under the coalition's bill—and I say again that this closely matches that—would cost $115 million in the first year. Doing it in the third year would cost some $300 million. I'm not pretending, and the Greens aren't pretending, that that isn't a significant cost to budget. But what cost do we put on supporting veterans? Well, we what cost the government has put on supporting veterans in this bill, a little bit under $40 million. But we know from the findings of the Senate report that it's as veterans transition into aged care and they age out of the system that they're losing these supports and they are especially vulnerable.

My office had a series of repeated discussions with the minister. Those discussions with the minister were not able to move the government on this. But we urge the minister—we did it in those discussions; we do it again today in this chamber—to lift the eligibility cap, because that hard and fast ageing out of support isn't the support that veterans need. It's not the support that families need.

The Greens will be supporting this bill because it takes us forward. It provides critical additional benefits consistent with that recommendation from the Senate committee, but there is so much more work to be done here, and we cannot and we will not forget those veterans who are heading into aged care and moving to retirement age.