Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

To be a member of the Australian Defence Force is to dedicate yourself to service and to dedicate your life to the ultimate act of courage. Our Defence Force personnel have a rich and defining place in what it is to be Australian. Mateship, a fair go, courage and sacrifice are all hallmarks of these very special people. We owe them a debt of gratitude for their work but, more than that—more than the thanks, the back slaps, the high fives and wearing our Anzac Day badges—as they return to civilian life, we owe them and their families the best possible service and care. From the representations I receive and from the discussions I have had in my community and on my recent visit to Afghanistan, which I'll touch on in a moment, the Department of Veterans' Affairs is the integral piece of the transitional assistance our defence personnel need.

I note that, in his statement yesterday, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs quoted some very interesting figures. Currently, there are 58,000 Australians serving in our defence forces and an estimated 320,000 veterans who have been deployed. The Department of Veterans' Affairs supports approximately 291,000 people, with more than 203,000 being over the age of 65 and around 23,000 under the age of 40. I would be interested to know whether this younger age bracket is growing—and I suspect it is. I recognise the Department of Veterans' Affairs has a very broad spectrum of age brackets and issues, both historically and contemporarily.

It is with great concern that I read about the satisfaction survey results in the minister's statement and the 10 per cent decline. The satisfaction survey figures show a steady decline from 93 per cent in 2010 to 83 per cent in 2016. That is a substantial change in the department's ability to perform its role. Of note, the survey results show that it is the younger veterans who are undergoing transition from service life who are the least satisfied clients of the Department of Veterans' Affairs. The survey found that only 49 per cent of veterans under the age of 45 were satisfied and that a startling 31 per cent were dissatisfied. I'm not here to lecture on the whys and wherefores of this dissatisfaction; however, I am deeply concerned that our younger veterans feel so dislocated in such an important part of their transition.

The survey also found that current Defence Force personnel transitioning had trouble accessing support. Forty-five per cent said the main services they had trouble accessing were physical health, mental health, financial support and employment services. This was echoed by my colleague here and was echoed in my discussions with Mr Mark Wales, who is a former SAS soldier and a Survivor contestant. He was in the House last night, and I took the opportunity to talk with him about his problems in returning from six years in the SAS and, before that, on deployment, which were accessing employment services. They were incredibly costly, and he'd been out of the loop, as he put it, for many years.

Sixty-one per cent of the claimants under 45 in the survey indicated that the time taken to process their claim failed to meet their expectations. For people in that age group it's about trust. As the member for Solomon, my colleague and ADF member for 13 years, has already said, trust is so important at that critical stage in dealing with what can be very confronting issues that the veterans and their families are facing. If veterans and veterans' groups can't get decisions out of the department, we really need to fix the issue. As Bill Shorten said, we are better at honouring our dead than caring for our living. That is a very important reflection that we make.

I note that my colleague, the Hon. Amanda Rishworth, has highlighted that Labor has supported the additional funding to fix Veterans' Affairs' longstanding IT issues. Unfortunately, this government doesn't have a good track record with IT, and I fear that veterans are not being heard adequately. I question how an IT solution might be the most effective way of addressing those issues I mentioned before like mental health, financial support and employment. It is the human side and not a computer that needs to be worked on. We owe it to our veterans to provide support and care. The wellbeing of personnel and their families to have their issues dealt with compassionately and correctly the first time should not be reliant on an IT system. Our veterans have been through enough. They have done everything that our country has asked of them and, mostly, above and beyond that. So to give them the run-around and the third degree in having their matters processed is entirely unacceptable.

Having seen firsthand the defence personnel on my deployment to Afghanistan, I know their transition to civilian life should be much more secure. These people are well trained, they're well organised and they're highly skilled. They are great assets to all types of businesses and to our community in general. But this doesn't mean they don't need our help. Many of these veterans, with all of the positive attributes they bring to the table, do have a period of readjustment. They do have to deal with what happened while they were serving at the nation's request. We need to have a strong and positive safety net for them.

I had the opportunity to spend some time visiting four bases on my recent tour in Afghanistan in July this year and, above all, the troops want to know that their contributions are valued. I am committed to ensuring that our service women and men are supported not only during their service but also while they're integrating back into civilian life. If I were to take the commentary of all of the people that I met while I was away, 99.99 per cent of them would point to the concerns they have coming back in. They talk about the amount of money that is put into training them to shoot, to build weapons and to care for their soldiers and their personnel while they're on the battlefield, but everywhere I went across all four bases—and there is a heightened sense of anxiety and absolutely a topic of discussion—Veterans' Affairs and their return to Australia was the No. 1 issue. In fact, I met a veteran who was injured coming out of a helicopter. He had a substantive issue and his claim was actually rejected by DVA. He was working at that time and he was absolutely affected by this injury, so much so that he had to change his job, but still DVA rejected his claim.

This week I have the great privilege of hosting Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Bell here in Parliament House as part of the exchange placement with the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program. Aaron is also here with me now, and I welcome him here into this chamber. With the memories of my recent trip in mind, it's been a great opportunity to share my experience and insight into a very different world to mine. I think Aaron has enjoyed the experience and, in fact, he helped me write this speech today. I don't think you could make it more crystal clear in a place like this than having it come from the mouth of someone who is actually serving. I am proud to have the opportunity to host Lieutenant Colonel Bell and I hope to learn as much as possible during this exchange, as much as he is learning from me.

On that recent trip to Afghanistan, the troops said they miss home and the things that remind them of home. Even for someone who only spent 10 days there, I can tell you, the trip had a massive impact on me: the heat and the conditions; the time delay in calling friends and family back home; and also the fact you can't just pick up the phone and have a normal conversation with someone back home who says, 'Hey, what did you do today?' 'I was out on the frontline.' Anything operational cannot be shared over the phone, so in your phone calls back home—and I was subject to this calling my own family—you can't say what you have been doing. I couldn't say much, so the conversation was pretty boring, and we pretty much talked about the weather. So it is very, very difficult to maintain any sense of normality, even for me just being there 10 days.

I want to take this opportunity, though, to shout out to my community. We are organising some care packages to go over to the women and the men that I met—Anzac biscuits, Tim Tams and Vegemite are always going to go down a treat. Letters of support from schoolchildren are something they really enjoy reading. Letters from mums and dads are always well received. I will take any donations delivered to my office of games, books and other activities that, in an operational environment that is sometimes 45 degrees, these men and women can enjoy sitting around in an air-conditioned room.

I look forward to joining my local veterans this Friday to commemorate the end of the Vietnam War. I also note that Legacy Week 2017 will be commencing on 27 August. Legacy cares for around 80,000 veterans' dependants ranging in age from less than 12 months to 109 years of age. It is groups such as Legacy that provide valuable support to families during tough times. I am aware there are a range of other organisations and services that provide support and assistance to current defence personnel, such as Soldier On. I wish to place on record Legacy's fine work, and I encourage everybody to support Legacy by purchasing a badge.

I would like to acknowledge the Penrith RSL sub-branch, St Mary's sub-branch, the 'Nashos'—of which I am a proud patron—the wives of the Vietnam vets, the Australian Light Horse Association, which are all operational in supporting each other and others in my electorate. I look forward to meeting with more defence personnel and having the Hon. Amanda Rishworth come in November to meet with the ex-service community. We'll ensure that we always work to achieve the best possible outcomes for veterans and their families.

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