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

I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate that we'll be supporting the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill 2022. But we do so with significant reservations. This bill will introduce amendments to the Veterans' Entitlements Act to implement what the government said they would do with disability compensation payments. The government made an election commitment for a modest increase in TPIs, and I'd have to say that this is largely fulfilling the modest nature of that commitment. This bill will increase the rate of the disability compensation payment at the special rate, often referred to as the TPI or totally and permanently incapacitated payment, payable under the Veterans' Entitlements Act. Because those payments are legislatively linked, the amendments to the Veterans' Entitlements Act provisions will also increase the temporary special rate under that act and the special rate disability pension payable under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act.

What is that increase going to be? Well, the increase that the government has committed to is a total payment of $1,000 over the year, which equates to $38.46 a fortnight, or, to really understand how modest this payment is, it equates to a bit less than $2.75 a day—not even a cup of coffee. That's the commitment that the government has brought to this chamber. We know that there are approximately 27,000 veterans who are struggling on the TPI payment. When you look at the entire TPI payment, plus all the very modest additional payments for energy supplements and the like, veterans who have been totally and permanently incapacitated because of injuries received during their service for the country are being asked to survive on less than $1,600 a fortnight, so less than $800 a week. With this payment, it will just touch $800 a week. For most veterans, given the cost of living in Australia, that is effectively a lifetime of poverty. That's what veterans get under the TPI: effectively a lifetime of poverty.

When the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee looked into this in 2021, they got submission after submission from veterans saying: 'Hang on! We served for the country. We put ourselves out to serve for the country, sometimes for decades, and we've been thrown on the scrapheap, with a TPI payment that barely keeps a roof above our heads, let alone keeping the power on or giving us access to the internet.' Although the quantum wasn't agreed, in 2021 the recommendation was that the government consider increasing the TPI payment. There wasn't agreement among the committee about how much that should be, but I'm pretty sure that if we went back and looked at the submissions and read the evidence, and if we spoke to veterans, we could all agree in this chamber that $2.75 a day is not enough; that committing veterans to a lifetime of poverty is the wrong policy call from this government. I know that there are competing priorities for government expenditure, but this total package is probably $20 million or less this year—maybe a little bit more next year. We're talking tiny amounts of money in the government's budget.

We see how veterans are valued in the priorities of this government and the priorities of the previous government. I want to make this clear: we're six months into this government, and at least we're getting an increase in the TPI. It's not much of an increase, it's embarrassingly small, but at least it's happening. So I'm going to give the minister and his office credit for achieving that. If you have a look at what happens to veterans on TPI, you'll see they are pretty much the only recipients of benefits that have gone backwards over the last seven years. They have fallen below the cost of living over the last seven years. They went backwards under the coalition government.

Often you see the coalition wanting to wrap themselves in khaki and say how much they care about the military and how much they love the defence forces. Let's have a look at what they delivered. They delivered to veterans falling real TPI benefits—less at the end of the coalition's term than they were at the beginning of the coalition's term. So let's have a look at all of those pictures of Dutton and others wrapped in khaki, standing beside the ADF—