Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Canning for his question. The area of Indigenous veterans is a significant priority for the department, for the government and particularly for me. There are estimated to be between 3,000 and 4,000 Indigenous veterans who have served our nation with great honour. Those veterans and their dependants are an important part of the veterans community. But what we know is that we are only engaged with about one in 10 of that group. What we have, and this has been in place since 1999, is a communications strategy to reach out to the Indigenous veterans community, to emphasise that the benefits and support including the proper commemoration of graves is an entitlement to which they are eligible, as are non-Indigenous veterans, and to make sure that we have systems in place to reach out and engage the Indigenous community.

I have put on a staff member, a veterans policy officer called Rob Nobel, who is an Indigenous person himself with experience in the military area. Right across the country, we have Indigenous contact points and awareness raising as part of our work. I would be more than happy to pursue that matter further with you and put the individual that you have spoken to in touch with Mr Nobel and our team, who are very focused on the needs of our veterans community, particularly those Indigenous members of the veterans community who are not fully engaged with the benefits that are available.

I know the member for Canning, representing the great state of Western Australia, would also understand that even for remote communities that have a member of the veterans community within them, my department funds that person’s health needs directly. These are additional resources on top of what may be already available in the community through the Indigenous health or community health programs. So you can see that there is an opportunity there to do more. We recognise that. The benefits are as they are for non-Indigenous veterans, but what we do recognise is that there needs to be a different method of engagement and outreach to contact them, and to develop trust and good working relationships as part of our effort. I would be more than happy to get the name of the individual you have mentioned and make sure he is part of that work.

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