Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

ator DAVEY (—) (): I rise to speak on the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation and Other Legislation Amendment (Incapacity Payments) Bill 2022. I want to point out that the opposition will be supporting this bill, because this bill, in fact, mirrors a coalition initiative announced in our 2022-23 federal budget, which we titled Maintaining Incapacity Payments for Veterans Studying. I'm pleased to see that the government has effectively picked up our policy and will now deliver on it.

This policy is very important because it supports veterans in their rehabilitation, particularly those veterans who are studying, ensuring that they don't lose funding, or that their funding is maintained for longer. We established a trial for this program, which was to expire on 30 June 2022. Our policy was to extend the trial for a further 12 months, which we fully funded in our last budget, to the tune of $7.1 million, extending it to 30 June 2023. This bill effectively matches our commitments. Prior to the trial, eligible veterans had their pre-injury earnings reduced to 75 per cent after undertaking 45 weeks of study. This bill will effectively provide extra financial support to allow those veterans to continue taking their further study. It's estimated that this bill will benefit 600 veterans once it's passed. I acknowledge that it also has a backdating mechanism so that veterans who've been on the trial, which expired at the end of June this year, won't be worse off and won't be out of pocket.

Each year about 6,000 service men and women leave the defence forces to return to civilian life. Many of them have an opportunity for a long career ahead of them, and a lot of them undertake further study in this transition to better prepare for civilian life. We know that we need to support our veterans in this transition to ensure that they have the best chance possible for a successful transition to civilian life. We also know that vocational rehabilitation equips veterans with the support and the resources that they need for the most successful transition, and we want to make it as simple as possible.

We will not be standing in the way of this bill, because support for veterans is not a political game and should not be a partisan game. We really need to ensure that we support those who have sacrificed so much and dedicated their time to ensuring the safety and security of our nation.

When we were in government, the Liberals and the Nationals invested over $11.5 billion each year to support the wellbeing of around 340,000 veterans and their families, and we want to ensure that this support continues and is improved on, because we recognise that we can always make improvements. We understand that the royal commission into veteran suicides is ongoing. We know that those veterans who successfully transition to a civilian career go on to make vital contributions to our society. So we thank the government for bringing forward this bill, and we will be supporting it.