Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to add my comments on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Budget Measures) Bill 2022. As others in this chamber have mentioned today, this bill sees the government implement the election commitment to increase the TPI payment and responds to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee report that recommended an increase in this payment. The TPI is paid to severely disabled veterans who are unable to work and support themselves because of permanent injuries that resulted, as other senators in this place have mentioned, from their selfless service for this country. It is financial support that we provide to severely incapacitated veterans. It's the minimum that we in this place should do.

It's a modest increase. As my colleagues Senator Shoebridge and Senator Cadell referred to, it works out to be $2.75 a day. Veterans will get that increase in their pension. They have been struggling for a long time and are feeling cost-of-living pressures here in Australia, like everybody else right now. We will give them that modest increase of $2.75. I, on behalf of the Australian Greens—as Senator Shoebridge already said—congratulate the government, but it's not enough and we should be doing more.

My electorate office in Western Australia is contacted all of the time by Western Australian veterans, including some First Nations veterans as well. They call my office and they send me emails. They tell me in their emails and phone calls about their struggles with rising energy costs, expensive medical bills, lack of accessibility to mental health services and just having enough money, as Senator Shoebridge already said, so that they don't have to make a choice between medication and food. This is their story—feeding their families, paying their rent, getting from A to B, and putting petrol in the tank.

Also, during my time in WA Police, I heard stories from ex ADF personnel who had joined the local police force—and I worked beside them—about the compounding trauma that they experienced during their time serving this country and the compounding trauma that stays with them still. I also watch and observe the Soldiers & Sirens Facebook page and others where I still see stories. I see the lack of accessibility to the front-line support that we provide to our veterans.

Our veterans have been reaching out to politicians for years, in this country, and talking about the suffering that's happened to them, and their mates, and how nothing ever changes, no-one ever listens, and how this culture of turning a blind eye results in poorer mental health outcomes. As Senator Davey mentioned, it results, unfortunately, in suicides.

This bill provides that modest additional financial support in TPI for veterans and their families who already receive this payment and for other eligible veterans of the future. The increase to this payment means it will be comparable with the national minimum wage and more than the after-tax national minimum wage a wage-earner would receive. Do the Greens support this? Yes, we do. Do the Greens think it's enough? No, we don't. I'd like to see the representatives in this place who have no military experience live off a modest pension such as this and make some of those choices that our veterans are making today.

The sacrifices these veterans have made for us during their Defence Force service are worth more than the minimum wage in this country. These veterans and their families live with their sacrifices every single day. We can do more in this place. We can start by sharing the dark stories of war—sad and horrifying realities that veterans have faced in battles on foreign shores—the truth-telling about the torment of these experiences that veterans live with every single day.

My people are also part of this story. They served in wars for this country and were denied some of the fundamental human rights and basic decency and respect, in relation to their identity. They served in the Boer War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War all before they were recognised as citizens in this country. Let's not forget that their lives were also lost in the frontier wars that raged across this country. That's not the definition of 'veteran', unfortunately, so we barely acknowledge that. I have spoken directly to Assistant Minister Keogh, in the other place, and I want to congratulate him for some of his recent commitments, in relation to his work on this bill, in making sure that the wrongs of the past are righted. But we have a long way to go. We have a lot of work to do.

I want to say to ageing veterans: you are not forgotten. We are not going to forget that you deserve the recognition, the support, that we as politicians have the power to provide through change. For our current service men and women, we must show them that we can do better, when it comes to veterans' issues, and we must give them the platform for their voices to heard.