Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2017, specifically to support the amendments to schedule 1 and 2 of the bill. This bill seeks to make the Department of Veterans' Affairs 'digitally ready' as part of the government's digital transformation agenda. Its aim is to make legislative changes in support of planned business and ICT reforms that will reduce processing times and automate and streamline existing processes.

As previous speakers on this legislation have noted, there are three schedules that make up this bill. Schedule 1 empowers the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to authorise the use of computer programs to make decisions and determinations as part of a move to an online claims system. This seeks to make the department's business processes more 'veteran centric' and streamline the experience for veterans and their families. Schedule 2 enables the secretary of the department to disclose information about particular cases or a particular class of cases to the public. This will include the ability to disclose the personal information of veterans and ex-service personnel to the public. Schedule 3 brings the existing provisions up to date in terms of drafting precedents and practices.

Labor broadly supports schedules 1 and 3 as measures that are appropriate to the ongoing changes and challenges facing Veterans' Affairs. Schedule 2, however, is more of a fraught proposition and will require serious oversight and regulation. It is heartening to see the government learning from the previous debacles that were the 'census fail' and the Centrelink 'robo-debt' disgrace. The reason that it is heartening is that the idea that a veteran's personal details could be not leaked, not whistle-blown but officially disclosed by the Minister or the Secretary of the Department of Veterans' Affairs to score points in the media is staggering. Sometimes, people in public life like to say that there are some things that are above politics, some things that we value too highly and regard with such esteem, that they should not be compromised by being used to serve a more lowly purpose. Those who have served our country, those veterans and former service personnel, are to be held in the highest regard.

Speaking of paying respect to veterans, I note with grave concern reports that Kurt Tucker, the President of the University of Queensland Liberal Club, itself a cradle for many a Liberal politician in the federal parliament and in the Parliament of Queensland, declared to his Facebook followers that he would have joined the Nazis had he lived in Germany in the 1930s. I quote:

I openly accept that I would be a Nazi Party member if this was 30's Germany, despite obviously opposing a lot of their core ideology.

I'm political, and to succeed in politics, public service, military, or even industry you had to be an NSDAP member.

I also believe 90% of … LNP members would be the same.

Could there be a more offensive formulation for the 993,000 Australians who served in the armed forces during World War II, fighting the Nazis and their allies? Some 27,073 Australians were killed in action or died; 23,477 were wounded; and 30,560 were taken prisoner of war. Of those taken prisoner, 8,296 died in captivity. Yet this aspiring Liberal politician disrespects their memory, their service and their sacrifice by saying he would have been a Nazi.

It is important that veterans and ex-service personnel who use DVA services are able to do so, knowing that their information will be kept confidential. This is one part of the legislation that the Labor Party has been very strong on and very keep to support. This legislation aims to make vets affairs 'digitally ready' so that veterans and former service personnel are helped by processing times being reduced and by automating and streamlining existing processes. It will make the processes in DVA more 'veteran centric'.

Labor has always maintained that it will not support legislation which gives the department the power to disclose individual's information, unless there is a threat to life, health or welfare. In our view, the department should not be using an individual's information to correct misinformation in the community, and we have been working with the government on the rules which accompany this legislation. The shadow minister for veterans affairs, Amanda Rishworth, in the other place, has been doing great work—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Terrific work.

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'terrific work' as Senator Farrell says.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fantastic work.

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'fantastic work'—in this space to negotiate appropriate guidelines around public disclosure. It is simply not appropriate for the department to respond in a public way if an individual has made a genuine mistake about a claim in relation to the administration of the department. If someone is genuinely mistaken, DVA needs to resolve that matter with them directly and not in the public sphere.

It may come as a surprise to some in this chamber, but, as I have said before, we do believe some things should be above politics and mudslinging. These are, after all, the people whom we have sent to war—to arenas of conflict.

I would like to reference a book, What It Is Like to Go to War, by Karl Marlantes, a Rhodes scholar and United States Marine Corps Vietnam veteran. In the dedication of that book, which is partly a memoir, he says:

This book is dedicated to the Marines I served with in Vietnam, those who came home and those who didn't, and to all combat veterans who fought and are fighting now with noble hearts—to all.

This book explores, as its title might suggest, what it is like to go to war and, also, to return from war. It looks at veterans, particularly those who served in the Vietnam War, going to war, and what it is like for veterans to return home to civilian life. It also look at the effects of war on veterans' families. He says:

Too many veterans, from Vietnam but also from Afghanistan and Iraq, are still waiting to come home. Take Raymond, who'd been a Marine in Vietnam and now sells commercial real estate. Raymond is big. You could hug only half of him at a time. Yet his bulk contains a stereotype-defying sensitivity… In the kitchen, the quiet eye of the storm, I talked with Raymond's wife, Dee. She and my first wife shared the not uncommon and deeply disturbing experience of living with a man with post-traumatic stress disorder without knowing where all the craziness was coming from. These women are veterans of a different war. For every veteran alone in the basement, there is a wife upstairs, bewildered, isolated, and in despair from the dark cloud of war that hangs over daily family life. For too many years the public hasn't recognised or sympathised with families of veterans coping with PTSD and has left them in silence.

Last week the Kookaburra Kids Foundation was here at Parliament House. This is an organisation that helps children of serving and ex-serving ADF families, where a parent may be dealing with mental health issues.

A few years ago, I went to see a play called The Long Way Home, which was a collaboration between the ADF and the Sydney Theatre Company. The play, in which soldiers performed with professional actors, focused on the experience of Australian troops who have been physically or psychologically wounded while serving with the ADF.

It is obvious that veterans and ex-service personnel should be treated with the utmost respect, and that includes the processing time being as fast and as efficient as is possible. A digital platform for DVA should facilitate that. There is a recognition that veterans and ex-service personnel might have claims that could be quite complex and that require fast processing. At the moment that does not happen. Claims are not processed quickly, and sometimes, from testimony given at the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel, we know that those delays can have tragic consequences.

Throughout history, societies have always honoured those who have gone to war on behalf of their people. Veterans have always been honoured, and the sacrifices of those who have died in war have always been held in the greatest and gravest regard. One of the best known tributes to war dead is Pericles' famous funeral oration in the fifth century BC. And, of course, if we were to look across Lake Burley Griffin to the Australian War Memorial, we would see other, more recent tributes.

As the government department that looks after the individuals who have made great sacrifices for our nation DVA, and the minister responsible, should be able to take a mature approach that is in the best interests of all those involved.

In nearly all of the submissions from former Defence personnel and their partners to this inquiry into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel, the drawn-out process of receiving claims, and their interactions with DVA, are, if not a significant factor in their state of mental health, at least a substantial barrier to their recovery.

I wrote to Minister Payne on 10 March in relation to some of these claims, some of which had come up during the estimates hearing. I wrote that the assessment of veterans' claims with respect to liability—that is, the liability of the department—is prolonged; and, following a liability determination, the finalisation of claims is protracted, drawn out, for months and sometimes for years. We hope that this legislation from the government to streamline the process does result in some significant improvement in service delivery to veterans and their families.

I want to read from two of those submissions. I will not read the whole submissions. One is from an ex-serviceperson who was a member of the Australian Regular Army for 18 months. He was discharged with a spinal injury, including nerve damage. He had surgery. It required a double discectomy, a spinal fusion and the insertion of two plates and six bolts. He was 23 and above the average ARA fitness when he joined. This is what he says:

Due to my length of service and the fact I did not deploy, my submission predominately focuses on my experiences with the Department of Veterans Affairs. However, it should be noted that if my compensation claims and ongoing clinical care requirements had been resolved prior to discharge as required, it is probable that my experiences post discharge would have been greatly improved.

He goes on to say:

All the while my physical symptoms were deteriorating and the stress was beginning to build.

This is because it took nearly nine years for DVA to really have a proper look at his claim. He goes on:

I saw a GP in January 2010 and broke down as I described my physical, mental and financial situation. The GP immediately referred me to an orthopaedic surgeon and provided me with medications from sample stocks. In February 2010 I underwent spinal surgery which improved my physical situation however I was still unable to work and was reliant on the generosity of family to cover the cost of growing medical and personal expenses.

From 2010 to 2012 I contemplated and planned my own suicide multiple times. I was clearly cast aside as a broken piece of equipment and was destined to be a burden at 25. I decided I would not allow my wife to come home to find me in a pool of blood or hanging from a beam so would take a bus somewhere, take all my medications and no longer be a burden or in pain. If it were not for her unwavering support throughout all of this, I have no doubt I would have followed through.

I have one more piece of testimony. This is from a woman who spoke about her husband, who had been a serviceman. She says:

I am a widow. My husband took his life two days short of two years after being medically evacuated out of Afghanistan. He was successful on his eighth attempt. He was never given gold-standard treatment at all. There was no carer support. Defence brings these people back broken, hands them over to a family that have no idea what to do with them, and we are left on our own. I had to be a mother, a wife and work full time and I had no idea how to cope with what I was given.

Medical personnel do not listen to the family. On every occasion, I predicted my husband was going to make an attempt on his life, and they told me I was wrong. These people have to know that we can read them better than they can probably read themselves. They have to give us some credit for having to live with these people 24/7, not just their one medical appointment per week.

…   …   …

My husband took his life in Darwin. In Darwin, there are four military bases. There is one psychologist and one psychiatrist that deal with PTSD—that is it—and they cover all emergency and first responders. It took six months before my husband even got to see a psychiatrist or psychologist, and then it was once every six weeks … He was discharged from hospital the day before he took his life because he was not a threat to himself … We are giving these poor people that have no mental health training the decision to discharge, and in this case my husband took his life. These people have now got to live with that, and I feel for them—I really do.

I know a lot of this is about DVA, but Defence have really got to pick up the ball on this one because they let my husband down. After eight attempts, how many more warnings do you actually need?

If making the Department of Veterans' Affairs digitally ready and thus more veteran centric will help veterans and ex-service personnel then this bill ought to and must be supported.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank all senators for their contribution to this debate on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Digital Readiness and Other Measures) Bill 2017. I would like to extend my thanks to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for their examination and recommendations in relation to the bill. As the minister mentioned in the other place, their suggestions have improved the bill. As we heard during the debate, the Department of Veterans' Affairs is taking veteran centred reform to significantly improve services for veterans and their families by re-engineering DVA business processes. In anticipation of planned business and ICT reforms amendment is required to provide a sound legislative basis for computerised decision making. Computerised decision making at DVA is expected to streamline services, free up resources and prepare DVA for future ICT upgrades. Computerised decision making would enable some elements of the Repatriation Commission's and Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission's decision making processes to be conducted by computer processes rather than by delegates.

The Department of Veterans' Affairs is one of the few client focused departments that does not have a capacity for computerised decision making. Other Commonwealth agencies already use computer programs to make decisions and are seeing benefits for their clients in reduced wait times on decisions and faster processing for claims. It is the intention of the department that in the short term computerised decision making would be gradually implemented only in relation to those decisions and determinations suitable for electronic decision making and when no subjectivity for a decision would play a role. In all cases, it will be the Secretary of DVA who will decide whether a computer program could be used to make decisions, and the secretary would not be able to delegate that power to anyone else in DVA.

The government has decided to accept the amendments made by the opposition, as they will restrict computer decision making to decisions that will not be adverse to clients of the department. The computer decision making measures are incredibly important to allow the benefits of ICT reform to flow to veterans as soon as possible. The importance of passing these amendments has meant that the government has also put forward amendments to schedule 2. The amendments that the government has made have removed the public interest disclosure provision from schedule 2 of the bill. The government believes these changes would have made stronger protections for veterans' privacy, including 15 safeguards that currently do not exist. It is unfortunate that misinformation and misreporting of this provision has meant that the government will forego these safeguards. However, as mentioned, the importance of the computer decision making powers and the need to provide these benefits to veterans has meant that to have the bill passed we have removed the provision.

Schedule 2 also contains information sharing provisions between DVA and Defence. Currently, information about serving members can be provided to the Secretary of the Department of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Force under the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 and the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 but cannot be shared under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 or, if enacted, the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation (Defence-Related Claims) Act 1988. This is anomalous, especially since the CDF owes a duty of care to members, especially those members deployed in operational contexts. Information sharing can also promote healthy work practices in the military. For example, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission may notice a common pattern of injuries arising out of certain duties. This information should be shared appropriately so that work practices can be adjusted, resulting in fewer members being injured. These amendments would simply replicate existing information-sharing provisions found in the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004.

The amendments in schedule 3 are minor and technical in nature. They update references to penalties expressed as a number of dollars with penalties expressed as a number of penalty units. Such changes enhance readability, facilitate interpretation and promote consistency across the Commonwealth statute book.

I would like specifically to acknowledge the contribution to the debate on this bill made by senators. Senator Farrell noted the constructive work done between the government and the opposition, particularly in relation to the public interest disclosure provisions. As Senator Back remarked, it is vitally important that we put veterans front and centre. The amendments in this bill provide a vital plank for the foundation of veteran centric reform in the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Senator Back also touched on the fact that the government has been listening to the views and concerns of members and senators and the veterans community. When this bill passed the House, several strong amendments were made that addressed concerns. I think the senator for his work on this bill and that of Senator Gallacher. The government would like to thank members of the crossbench for their engagement on this bill also. This bill will go a long way to creating a better level of service for veterans. It will allow the continuation of reform that will mean the department will become a 21st century service provider.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.