Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'To honour their memory and sacrifice, to remember their commitment, to thank them for their service': these are words we here when we speak of our veterans. Veterans affairs have always been off the table when it comes to political point scoring. Both major parties generally have respected that. However, right now we are seeing a degradation of that fact by this current government. The Prime Minister talked a pretty big game during the election. 'Standing up for veterans' was one of the catch cries we heard. The Prime Minister promised to index the DFRB and DFRDB pensions. These are vital schemes but they impact only one-sixth of all veterans. In contrast, this Prime Minister is cutting the indexation to all other veterans, in a move which can only be described as 'cynical'.

This government has robbed Peter to pay Paul. Worse still, they have robbed one set of veterans to pay another. While superannuants in those schemes—the DFRB and the DFRDB—will be better off, veterans surviving on the service pension will absolutely be hit. Those on the DVA disability pension will be hit. Those surviving spouses will be hit.

In government, Labor implemented a range of policies to support veterans. Labor increased the veteran income support pension and legislated for a twice-yearly indexed increase, a policy so successful that the coalition recently tried to claim credit as its own—another lie. Labor invested over $90 in mental health services and support for veterans, substantially increased the number of mental health workers for veterans and invested in research funding for enhanced prevention strategies.

I want to put on the record this evening concerns which have been raised with me by former students of mine who now have reached the end of their careers in the services, who have served up to nine tours of duty in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, who are pleading with me for care for their fellow veterans, easy access to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder and other challenges that arise after their years of having given such service to democracy in places of high conflict.

In government, Labor's record of $12.5 billion funded a raft of new services for our former servicemen and women, but nothing is safe from the slashing and burning of an equitable society in the eyes of this coalition government. We delivered new measures on mental health. We delivered better access to medication and better support for families. These were very effective reforms which required us to act, but there is so much more that needs to be done. For example, it still takes far too long for many veterans to process claims for compensation. But we see this heartless Abbott government also axing the three-months backdating of veterans' disability pensions for successful claimants. This will be effective from 1 January, 2015. This backdating was so important for disability pensioners because they often found themselves caught up in a process with backlogs of bills they needed to address.

Under the coalition government, we have seen the slashing of $107 million from the veterans' affairs budget. These cuts will hurt 280,000 former service people and their families. And this is from a Prime Minister who promised and promised, who lied when he said that he would not cut pensions. Clearly this is a terrible failure, a broken promise and veterans should not forget that betrayal of this Prime Minister. The coalition has desperately tried to hide these cuts. It was only through sustained questioning in Senate estimates that the truth of what they were up to was finally admitted by the department itself. This is a shameful way to treat the ex-servicemen and women of Australia, whose unique contribution has kept this nation safe.

Veterans and those suffering from injuries, who have served our country, will have to now manage these cost-of-living hits at the same time as they are coping with new tax hikes like the proposed GP tax and the petrol tax hike. All these will affect older Australians with a Commonwealth seniors health card or a gold card. The coalition will also be scrapping the seniors supplement, which has been vital in helping seniors make ends meet, while paying the many costs of living that are part of their retirement—at a time when they are supposed to be enjoying their life. This government is determined to make it hardest of those who have the least. It is worst for those who are most vulnerable. This will be a cut of up to $800 each and every year for veterans.

In another blow to veterans, military and other un-taxed superannuation income will be counted as income when applying for a Commonwealth seniors health card. Also hacked away by the Abbott government are the deeming rate thresholds which are will be moved, hitting the part-pensions of some veterans with few assets. The Prime Minister is telling our veterans and thousands upon thousands of ordinary Australians that they must take a permanent cut to their income and their ability to cope with cost of living pressures, while he is only asking wealthier Australians to cop a two per cent tax increase for three years and politicians to take a pay freeze for one year. It is just so completely unfair, but that is the signature of every policy this government is bringing to this place. Not only has the Liberal government played with the numbers for veterans' pensions but, as we may remember in this place, only a few days before Anzac Day this year, we also found out that the Abbott government was closing nine Veterans' Access Network offices in Victoria and New South Wales, including one on the Central Coast, in Gosford. There are two Liberal members who have no voice on this issue, who are silent on this issue, who go out and parade themselves as supporters of veterans, who attend functions where the veterans gather and pretend that they offer support while they see these services being ripped away and while they support the lies of this government.

By shutting down the Gosford DVA office and other eight, the Abbott government is forcing veterans to travel to get face-to-face support and queue alongside job seekers at Centrelink. Can you imagine for a minute, Mr Acting Deputy President, that we have veterans lining up at Centrelink. These are men and women who may have experienced post-traumatic stress, who go to seek assistance, and that is the place where they have to go. There is no specialised care, no special place for them. They are not worthy of it, in the eyes of this Abbott government, which is determined to cut away at the very fabric of this society. Closing a stand-alone VAN office, a place dedicated to the care of veterans, is a slap in the face to those who have served their country and who deserve specialised personal care. The VAN offices play a very important outreach role by attending local veterans' organisation meetings and providing valuable individual attention to local veterans.

Some of our young veterans, as I have said, have served as many as eight or nine tours of duty in Afghanistan. An experienced person who actually understands post-traumatic disorder and other veteran-specific needs is actually vital. This is not an optional service; this is the core respect that we should be showing our veterans. Yet this government tried to hide it, they have been revealed and now they are continuing to rip away at the very service support that is the right of our returned veterans.

This is a government that told veterans that they care about looking after them, but we are seeing revealed here in this parliament the real view of veterans from those opposite, with cuts to services and cuts to payments that veterans rely on and replacing them with a web page, barely a 'sorry' and a phone number. Closures are going to particularly affect our older veterans and war widows, who may have no access to a computer and who may have relied on these local services for many years. Our veterans and their families deserve respect and gratitude—not more lies from a deceptive and miserly government.