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

Pursuant to standing order 74(5), I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Veterans' Affairs for an explanation of why answers have not been provided to question on notice No. 786 asked during the 2023-24 supplementary budget estimates hearings of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. This question is related to medical services for veterans.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't believe we'd been given any prior advice that this was going to come up, so I'm a little bit unable to assist Senator Lambie with the issue she's raised.

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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's response.

We actually gave you notice on Monday, and you're still not listening to us. Quite frankly, we have a royal commission going on. You would think you would have learnt by now. This is well into four months. It was four months ago that some very simple questions were asked over a story broadcasted by the ABC's 7.30that centred on a podiatry business and detailed evidence of fake GP referrals, bogus billing and charging fees for no service to schemes for injured workers, including those of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. We simply asked a few questions. We're four months down. This is taxpayers' money that we're talking about, by the way, as well as the detrimental, negative effect it's actually having on veterans. Like I said, it's not just veterans; there are others as well.

We asked simple things like: How are these checks being performed by the department? What are the systems between the psychiatry billing and the podiatry billing? We haven't asked hard questions here. Who specifically in the department is doing these checks? I'm assuming, as we're now four months in and we keep continually going to the department and asking this, that you actually have nobody doing these checks. What controls does DVA have in place to ensure that what is being paid out to practitioners is justified? Once again, why aren't you doing the checks and balances here?

Because I can't get to that point, I don't know what's happening to these medical practitioners. What is happening to them? What is the retribution that will happen to them for doing this? Is there none? We don't care? There is nothing happening. There are no repercussions for these practitioners. And, by the way, I haven't heard the AMA say a damn thing about this either, and they know what's going on. It just seems like you don't want to deal with this. This is taxpayers' money that we're talking about here. If there are medical practitioners out there rorting the system, then every Australian taxpayer and every veteran should know that.

Veterans are finding it very difficult to access their billing history to check that what is being billed is true and accurate. They are often told it will take months to process their billing history. This is where I really want to thump you today. Take months? You've been providing our medical history to the University of South Australia for years. Everything you are looking for that I have put in a request for is on that billing history, so why is it taking you four months? We've all got our FOIs back, and I know that exactly what I'm asking for in this document is in that history that you are providing to the South Australian university. Why aren't you getting back to these veterans?

I find it really disrespectful—with everything that is going on, especially with the royal commission, where many have had to go up and tell their stories and have been retraumatized—that it's taking four months, over something simple, to hold medical practitioners responsible for ripping off the system and ripping off taxpayers' money. We're four months in, and nothing is being done about this. You can't be serious. I ask that, by the time I get back here in the next 2½ weeks, I have answers to these questions.

I do not want to take up any more time this afternoon. I don't want to have to use another 10 minutes. Once again, I'm going to give the minister the benefit of the doubt. Every question we've asked is actually on our data, practically, which we can find and which the department has provided to the University of South Australia. It's already there, but you can't provide that data to me. It is beyond disgusting. Given the circumstance that we're still going on with a royal commission into veterans suicide, please just answer the questions that I gave you four months ago. That is all I'm asking.

Question agreed to.