Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table a supplementary explanatory memorandum relating to the government amendments to be moved to this bill, which I understand were circulated in the chamber earlier today.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to address Labor's support for schedules 1 and 3 of the bill. Labor also supports the government's proposed amendments that would ensure that schedule 2 of this bill does not proceed at this point in time. In light of the government's decision with respect to schedule 2, the opposition will not be moving the amendments to the bill circulated on sheet 7753 and 7754 at this time.

Schedule 1 of the bill will affect changes that will enhance the Veterans' Vocational Rehabilitation Scheme, or VVRS, and the Veterans' Entitlements Act. This will mean that an amount equivalent to the permissible earnings for special and intermediate recipients will be disregarded for VVRS participants when determining whether the person's reduced daily pension amount should be increased and will give them the same benefit from permissible earnings as is received by a non-participant of the VVRS.

Schedule 2 of the bill was intended to streamline the appeals process into a single pathway for a reconsideration or review of an original determination under chapter 8 of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act.

Schedule 3 of the bill will expand the war graves regulation-making power under the Defence Act 1903 to include graves of service dependants buried in Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia.

As we said, Labor supports schedules 1 and 3 as sensible and welcome measures, but it does, however, have concerns with measures proposed in schedule 2. The goal of improving the manner in which determinations of the Department of Veterans' Affairs are managed was identified in an important report undertaken by the previous government—namely, the Review of military compensation arrangements. The review was accepted by Labor's former veterans affairs minister, the honourable Warren Snowdon, in May 2012. While this report was cited by the current government as justification for schedule 2, we would do well to recall the report's recommendations. In particular, I draw senators' attention to the following parts of the report:

17.91 If no cost awards are available under the single path, members pursuing claims for peacetime service (who do not have access to merits-based legal aid) are put at a disadvantage. Currently, the availability of the second path allows this to be taken into account.

17.92 Implementation of a single path would therefore require rethinking the current position in relation to costs and legal aid.

… … …

17.94 However, the Committee’s preference is to have a full costs jurisdiction for all MRCA applicants at AAT level. This would allow legal and other representatives to assess the merits of cases and pursue them on a ‘no win, no fee’ basis.

Labor's then Veterans' Affairs minister, Mr Snowdon, accepted the report's recommendations as they pertained to establishing a single appeals pathway for our veterans. Labor continues to support the ideal of establishing a single appeals pathway for our veterans, but that single appeal pathway must achieve certain key policy goals. It must be fair. It must present both the DVA and individual veterans with the opportunity of procedural fairness. It must be appealable on fair terms. It must aim to lessen the time that veterans spend bogged down in an appeals process. Labor is not convinced that these important goals have been met in schedule 2, as presently drafted.

We thank the Minister for Veterans' Affairs for his constructive approach with this bill and willingness to listen to the concerns of Labor, the crossbench and other stakeholders. We commend the course of action to the chamber.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the in-committee debate on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (2015 Budget Measures) Bill 2015. When the minister replies, I will seek clarification and confirmation on whether schedule 2, clause 9B has been omitted from the amended version of the legislation. It appears that the contested and controversial schedule 2 will be scrapped by this government. There are many nervous veterans who would like to hear the words from the minister, personally.

I have no objections to schedule 1 and schedule 3 of the proposed government legislation. Schedule 1—$0.7 million over the next four years—will expand the range of services available under the Veterans' Vocational Rehabilitation Scheme, the VVRS, and make changes to the way certain periods of work undertaken as part of the VVRS, income earned from that work and periods of unemployment affect the rate of disability pension and/or service pension paid to participants. As a matter of fact, I welcome that. I congratulate the government for doing that. That is a wonderful thing. I know that there are a lot of veterans and families who are very appreciative of that.

Schedule 3, relating to the graves of dependants of member of the Defence Force—at a cost of $1.8 million over four years—allows the Minister for Veterans' Affairs to amend Regulation 31 of the Defence Force Regulations 1952 so as to provide for the repatriation of the remains of service dependants buried in the Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia.

However, I do have concerns and suggestions for schedule 2 and specifically clause 9B which I strongly oppose. This provision, as it stood in the unamended legislation, undermined and weakened veterans' fundamental legal rights and decreased their chances of appealing bad decisions made by the Veterans' Review Board. The provisions, which would have harmed our veterans, relate to the legal costs, which can be awarded to veterans by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for successful appeal applications to decisions made in the Veterans' Review Board. Under the current system, costs can be awarded to veterans should their appeal to the higher authority, the AAT, be successful. That right to access costs would be taken away from our veterans should this legislation be passed in its original form, or indeed in an amended form which was leaked to me. It was there in black and white at clause 9B, which read, on the version that found its way into my office somehow:

After subsection 357(6) Insert

(6A) if in any proceedings, the Tribunal varies or sets aside a reviewable determination made by the Board, the Tribunal must not make an order under subsection (2) or (4) in favour of a claimant in relation to the costs of those proceedings if:

(a) In the course of the review by the Tribunal, the claimant provided to the tribunal a document relevant to the review, and

(b) The tribunal is satisfied that, at the time when the Board made the reviewable determination, the Board did not have the document, nor was the document reasonably available to the Board; and

(c) The Tribunal is satisfied that, if the Board had the document at the time when the Board made the reviewable determination, the Board would have made a determination more favourable to the claimant than the reviewable determination.

Translating that legal speech into easily understandable English, it means that, if the veteran introduces to their legal process new information as part of their appeal in the form of a doctor's report, supporting statements from former ADF colleagues, witness statements from family and friends, medical statements from GPs outside the defence system, personnel files from Defence, summons documents or psych documents, then that veteran will have to pay for their legal costs, even if the veteran wins their case before the independent appeals tribunal. This provision was clearly designed to deter veterans from appealing decisions made by the Veterans' Review Board.

Who would appeal a bad decision if you would be forced to pay for the legal costs no matter what the outcome of the legal proceedings? That is exactly where we were heading. Most fair-minded Australians would expect that, if an independent judicial tribunal found in favour of a claim by one of our veterans, that veteran's legal costs would be reimbursed. It was not the veteran's fault that a wrong decision was made in the first place, so why should they be forced to pay extra for what was essentially a government mistake?

Without the amendment, it would have made things significantly harder for the veteran and their personal legal team to subject the Veterans' Review Board decision-making process to independent scrutiny. While the government likes to peddle the mistruth that the Veterans' Review Board is a fair and independent body, the simple fact is: veterans are not allowed to take their solicitors into those hearings, and many of the members of the VRB are legally trained. I do not see where the fair playing ground is in that. We have a situation where, quite often, the veteran and his or her advocate, who do not have official legal training, walk into a room full of government representatives who have official legal training. To rub salt into what has become a gaping wound, the public servants who serve on these government bodies, should they have a grievance and want to appeal before the AAT, will be able to be awarded legal costs should their appeal be upheld. It is a shocking example of where public servants are being treated better and given more legal rights than our veterans.

Before I close, I would like to broadly comment on the state of affairs within Veterans' Affairs. I had high hopes when the old minister, Minister Ronaldson, was replaced with the new minister, Stuart Robert. Those high hopes lasted for about five minutes into my first and likely my only meeting with Minister Robert. It is clear from the tone and attitude of the new Minister for Veterans' Affairs that, despite the fact he is a veteran himself, his loyalty is to the Liberal Party and not his former comrades, certainly not the diggers from non-commissioned ranks. That is for sure. I raised a couple of very important veteran cases with the new minister, and his dismissive and misleading comments shocked me to the core.

The only hope I have for justice to be delivered to veterans who have been betrayed, bullied and ignored by successive governments is for a royal commission to finally be established. We will get there in the end. A royal commission would give thousands of veterans a chance to put their hands on a Bible, tell the truth and lift the lid on the dysfunction, endemic corruption, abuse of office, misconduct and cover-up from the highest levels of Defence and Veterans' Affairs. It will take a massive backlash from the public to force this government into establishing a royal commission, but I am confident that, when the stories of veterans like Marcus Saltmarsh, SAS Trooper Evan Donaldson and Jordan Woodruff, just to name a few, are properly told, the white-hot anger from the Australian people will be felt, even by politicians who think they are untouchable in this reinforced and insulated building.

In closing: when the minister replies, I seek clarification and confirmation from her that schedule 2, clause 9B, has been omitted from this amended version of the legislation.

Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Temporary Chairman, I was going to see if the minister wanted to respond to Senator Lambie with that confirmation. Perhaps you could get her to do that in a second. I will just say a few quick words. The Greens have been working constructively with all parties, especially in recent days, on this legislation. We have met with stakeholders. It does concern me how much influence a couple of legal firms have had in what we are discussing here today. There are other stakeholders, and the Greens have not been lobbied by any veterans' groups around this legislation, which I find quite interesting. Nevertheless, I think there seems to be a unity ticket on the fact that we need a simplified single pathway for veterans' review. That seems to be acceptable to all stakeholders. However, we are not going to be voting on that tonight, I understand. That will come back next year. It has been sent off to committee. I have read those reports. I think it is time to be constructive and actually get an outcome for veterans, rather than just attacking the government, which I see all the time.

We do understand that this is complicated, that there is history and a lot of individual cases, but I do believe the intent of this was to actually make this easier for veterans groups. I am glad that Senator Lambie insisted this went away to committee. The committee certainly made some constructive recommendations, including, as was mentioned earlier, the potential to award legal costs through the AAT stage. That is something the Greens actually approached the government with during the week, about an amendment. I think the government had already prepared amendments to that particular aspect of this bill, but that will be dealt with at some stage in the future. The Greens are quite happy to vote for amendment (3), opposing schedule 2, and to support amendments (1) and (2).

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have got a packet of questions to ask, so, Minister, if you are happy to remove schedule 2 out of the whole mix—I know you have got a lot of legislation you want to get through in the week—I am happy to move it along and we will take the fight up next year. I am happy to do that.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me see what I can do to help. You will see on sheet JC277 government amendments (1), (2) and (3), the result of which will be the removal of schedule 2, in its entirety, from the legislation that we are considering now. I seek leave to move amendments (1) and (2) together.

Leave granted.

I move government amendments (1) and (2) on JC277:

(1) Title, page 1 (lines 2 and 3), omit ", military rehabilitation and compensation".

(2) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 3), omit the table item.

Question agreed to.

The government opposes schedule 2 in the following terms:

(3) Schedule 2, page 8 (line 1) to page 9 (line 9), to be opposed.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that schedule 2 stand as printed.

Question negatived.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me make a few remarks in summary and indicate to the chamber, the shadow minister and other representatives in the chamber that the government does intend to come back in 2016 with schedule 2, which will enable further discussion of the issues raised by Senator Lambie, Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Conroy with respect to the provisions of that schedule. However, they are not part of this discussion tonight in any way, shape or form now that those amendments have been carried.

May I make just a few summing-up remarks. The bill before the chamber gives effect to two veterans affairs' 2015 budget measures that benefit the defence and the ex-service community. These benefits begin with enhancements to the Veterans' Vocational Rehabilitation Scheme operating under the Veterans' Entitlements Act. These enhancements to the scheme will expand the range of services available to include medical management and psychosocial services. These additional services can further assist a participant's recovery through comprehensive, individually tailored rehabilitation interventions that include treatment monitoring and case management, pain management, family education and counselling to assist a participant to adjust to their disability.

Further enhancements to the scheme will result in recipients of the special rate or intermediate rate of disability pension being able to retain more of their pension and a more favourable pension adjustment regime for participants who start the scheme but experience prolonged absences from the workforce. These enhancements to the scheme are designed to encourage participation of more eligible veterans and members so that they are able to benefit from the substantial long-term health benefits that are associated with rejoining or remaining in the workforce.

Finally, the bill will amend the Defence Act to enable the repatriation of the remains of eight service dependants buried in Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia if requested to so by the families of the deceased. A change in government policy in January 1966 meant that, whilst most veterans killed in action in Vietnam were repatriated to Australia for burial, 24 were in fact buried in the Terendak Military Cemetery in Malaysia. On 25 May this year, the former Prime Minister offered to repatriate the remains of these and a number of other Australian servicemen and service dependants buried in the Terendak Military Cemetery. These amendments will enable the War Graves Regulations made under the Defence Act to authorise the repatriation of the eight service dependants if requested to do so by their families.

These 2015 budget measures contribute to this government's commitment to recognising and meeting the needs of current and former members of the Australian Defence Force and their families. I thank members of the chamber for their consideration of this bill and their constructive discussion of those parts of the bill which have currently been excised, and I seek the support of the chamber.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.