Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Senator Ronaldson. I refer to the minister's decision to cut $800,000 from the Australian War Memorial's Travelling Exhibitions program during the first year of Australia's World War I commemorations. I also refer to the minister's explanation that it was 'unfortunate' if the memorial had commissioned any more exhibitions as the memorial had received an official warning in May. Given the statement by the War Memorial, 'At no stage before 14th August, were we given any indication that the future funding for travelling exhibitions was at risk,' I ask the minister who are we to believe?

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable senator for his question. The Labor Party is very quick with these issues. It ran about three days ago, but I am happy to take it from the back of the QTB and put up with the hot issues again. I say to the honourable senator that this decision was made on the back of me as minister and the department to make some judgements about what expenditure we are going to put into various areas over the next four years. I think it is a pity that the shadow minister, who was talking about this being a $10 million program, is clearly not across his brief and clearly knows absolutely nothing about this and was actually talking about this in the context of a budget cut. Can I make it absolutely clear to the chamber that the budget for DVA this year is exactly the same as what the budget was in the first year of your—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order going to direct relevance. Minister, there was no mention of the budget. The question goes to an inconsistency between the minister's explanation and the War Memorial's statement—an inconsistency between what the Minister for Veterans' Affairs has said and what the Australian War Memorial has said. I ask you to ask him to return to the question.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question also contained an issue pertaining to a cut in funding, and the minister was addressing that portion of the question and he still has nearly half of his time to answer the question.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say to the honourable senator that this is a program that has been running for a number of years. We are talking about $800,000 as he indicated as opposed to the $10 million that the shadow minister referred to. But under this agreement, it is a memorandum of understanding signed by the former government. Under that memorandum of understanding, either party can give notice of its intention to—

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order going to direct relevance. It is about the issue. The specific question is about the statement from the War Memorial about the timing of the knowledge from the department or the minister. We have now only got 16 seconds left and we have not got to that part of the question.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the minister of the question. The minister has the call.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot imagine being any more relevant to the question. In the time that is left available to me now—that memorandum was signed and it was as a result of discussions with the department that we decided(Time expired)

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Is the minister aware that one of the closed travelling exhibitions is 'Remember me: the lost diggers of Vignacourt', donated by Kerry Stokes, who is very distressed by the cut? Why did the minister announce just this month that this exhibition would be touring Australia over the next few years?

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable senator for his question. The War Memorial will be receiving $47.8 million in this budget, up from $40 million in the last Labor budget. We have actually increased funding for Australian schoolchildren to come to the War Memorial to experience the most magnificent of our institutions.

What you need to understand is that I did not do this with any joy, but we have some very big decisions to make in relation to this nation over the next four and 10 years. One of those is: how is this nation going to respond to the 71,500 young men and women who have served this nation overseas in the last 20 years? You may well be prepared to sit back and let this nation do to them what we did post-Vietnam, but I, most assuredly, am not prepared to do so. (Time expired)

Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Having slashed funding to the Australian War Memorial, cut veterans' pensions by reducing indexation, cut $217 annual payments to children of war veterans and axed three months of backdating of veterans' disability pensions for new recipients, can the minister tell us what area of his portfolio is next on the chopping block?

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a pathetic question that is. I will tell the honourable senator that one of the first things I had to do within three days of getting sworn in was find $1.3 million for the Albany commemorative event because the Australian Labor Party thought they had a lot of great ideas but had no money to pay for them. I was required to find $1.3 million from a budget that was the same as yours in the last term of the Labor government.

Yes, we have financial stresses. I take no issue with that. But I am going to make decisions that will ensure that we can look after contemporary veterans and hold commemorative events because I have an investment in the young people of this country, who I want to understand what their obligations will be in the future to these men and women who have served this nation.