Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

This amendment includes safeguards to stop the clock to account for reasonable delays, like for medical advice. If the commission does not determine the claim by the end of the consideration period, the commission is taken to have accepted the claim. Veterans who have to take their matters to the Veterans' Review Board can't be represented by a lawyer. This is hugely unfair for some of them, and it flips all the power to the DVA staff, which are expert lawyers—the known enemy, as we like to call them, who do have access to legal representation before the hearing. My amendment attempts to level the playing field so veterans can get legal representation themselves when they go before the Veterans' Review Board to plead their case. It's a no brainer, and I reckon it gives the veterans a fair go. It also removes section 353L, which allows the Veterans' Review Board to imprison a veteran for up to six months if they insult a person, interrupt proceedings, create a disturbance or cause contempt as part of their proceedings. We need to know as much as possible about the ongoing health and wellbeing of our veterans. That means research and data gathering.

The amendment responds to recommendations 114, 115 and 117 of the royal commission. It establishes an expert committee on veteran research made up of people with real skills and real experience. The amendment also requires the department to establish work plans to outline the immediate research priorities of the department in relation to health and wellbeing, long-term research goals and detailed actions to address gaps in the legislation.

My amendments are not perfect, but they will go a hell of a long way to fixing the injustice that we've put up with for far too long, that is within the system and that has resulted in so many of your mates taking their lives. I ask everyone in this place to vote for my amendments. Veterans put their lives on the line for this country. The least that we can do is make sure that they are looked after during and beyond their service.

I would also like to put on record the shocking and slow response the coalition displayed over nine years. They did everything they could to resist a royal commission. They were aided and abetted by the national RSL. They kept telling me and the veterans that there is 'nothing to see here'. The National President of the RSL even went after Julie-Ann Finney, accusing her of campaigning for a royal commission to assuage guilt for her failed relationship with her son. You, Mr Melick, subsequently apologised, but I have to ask why on earth this man is still the head of the national RSL. It is certainly not the request and it is not the want of every digger who has served and is serving.

I would like to acknowledge the work of Minister Keogh and his willingness to work with me over the summer and over the past two years. I want to take some time here to make sure that the veterans know this: I cannot praise Minister Keogh enough. He has worked over the Christmas period with me. He's given up time with his family. It has been very enduring of him to go through this with me for the past two years. He has carried tears behind closed doors. I want you to know that. He has, fair dinkum, put everything he possibly can into this, knowing we needed to get as much as we possibly could through before an election.

We have done everything that we possibly can over the last eight weeks to get that national commissioner up and to start ticking off those royal commission recommendations. We cannot possibly have any hours left, between the minister and I, to do anything else that is left. We have nothing left. I just wanted you to know that Minister Keogh—over the last 10 years I have been up there, the revolving door of ministers has been an absolute shocker for you people—has put his heart and his soul into this, and I will pay credit where credit is due. I know, at times, that we have sat behind closed doors and cried together, and we have tried to do everything possible in the last eight weeks. I cannot thank you enough, from the bottom of my heart, Minister Keogh. I want you to know that. I want every veteran out there to know that, because nobody during the period of time I've been up here has ever done what you have done or stood beside me.

I want to thank the Prime Minister for giving me the extra staff member over the last two years. I want to thank you, Luke Brown. I don't think this will get you sacked. I want every veteran out there to know that assistant commissioner Luke Brown has saved many lives in the last two years, because, when this government came in, they gave me full access to Luke Brown. I'm not sure if he works for DVA or Jacqui Lambie, but I cannot thank you enough, Luke. I cannot thank you enough. The pressure that you have taken off the people in my office has been absolutely remarkable. It has stopped being the revolving door for you veterans out there as well, and it's caused a hell of a lot less harm to my office and the people working there in the last two years. Luke, thank you. Just to let you know, I have another six people I will need to come and see in the next day. I'm sorry I didn't ring you Monday. I'll be in touch with you tomorrow, mate, but thank you.

Finally, I would like to thank all the organisations, the veterans, the mothers and the families who have fought for the royal commission. I know it has taken it out of you. I know it has taken it out of me. I want to thank especially Julie-Ann Finney and the other mums and the dads who have worked so tirelessly for many, many years, campaigning for veterans and the recommendations of the royal commission. Julie-Ann, I want you to know that your son would be so proud of you.

I know the royal commissioners. You were shaken, and I know that you have been moved by the testimony from so many. I know that has been extremely harmful to you, and I want to thank you for going through that and doing everything you could for us. Nothing can compensate for the pain and the loss of losing your child, and that is the burden of military service that many parents and many families will have to carry with them for the rest of their lives.

The passage of this bill won't fix everything, but the speed of the government response is now down to you. To you, Matt, once again, thank you. I know that we have tried to rush this through, and I'm pretty sure we've got it right—we've got to be damn close—but there is still a lot of work to be done. There are still over 120 recommendations to be put through as quickly as possible.

We have worked hard in my office over the last eight years to do as much as we possibly can to fix the DVA and Defence. Like I said, it has taken a toll on my staff, and I've lost some of them along the way. To my staff, thank you, once again, for your commitment to the veterans over the last eight years. I thank all of you.

I am up for re-election this year, and I am hoping that Tasmanians will give me another six years, but if they don't I want the veteran community to know that I will always stand beside you. I want you to stay vigilant. You will need to keep holding Defence, the Department of Veterans' Affairs and, most importantly, the government to account. You must do that.

I want you service organisations to listen to me—listen very carefully. There are a lot of you out there; there are thousands. I want you to stop fighting with each other, because it is not helpful. You are not standing together as one, so you have no strength. You have a national RSL that is useless; we know that, but if you service organisations continue to fight with each other and bicker with each other, you will continue to not save lives. Dealing with you makes my job up here very difficult, and you are not being fair to your mates.

If you are part of an organisation and you fall out with your mates, don't go and start another one. It has not been helpful. I know that many of you in these organisations are also physically and psychologically damaged. I know your patience only goes so far. I also know that for many, many years you have been fighting a government that has destroyed you. I know that, but the biggest enemy that I have right now and that we, the veterans out there, have right now is you, because you won't come together as one. For God's sake, even the Vietnam veterans worked it out. They only split into two groups, not thousands. That has been extremely harmful to us. I want you to go away and think about that.

I want to see you guys have one group, one union. That's where you should be—and that is what our national RSL should have been. It has failed us, but it has taken great delight over the years in watching us chew each other up for breakfast. Oh, they've loved it! I beg you to recognise that you will only become a force again if you come together as one. You must come together as one. You have to do that today. Then we will get what we want. But, until you do that, you will make the fight harder. I want you to go away and have a good think about that. Surely one of you is big enough to say, 'The rest of us are not doing our job, and we need to come together as one.' I don't even care what you call us, but bring us together because it gives us more power and it gives us more might. Then we can help our own. That is how it works.

Sometimes I know it feels like two steps forward and one step back. But, whenever I have felt defeated, the resilience and the strength of you, even in the chaos you are in—that service organisation community has got me through. I want to make sure that you know that. I want to thank all of you for helping me along the way. There are some who have, along the way, thrown names at me and others out there, and it has been very unhelpful. But I think I've said enough about service organisations out there.

All I'm asking you to do, in my last minute, is to go away and think about where you are, because what you are doing in thousands of groups out there, how you've all separated, is not helpful. It is not helpful to saving your mates.