Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Solomon for his question and acknowledge that he has a strong relationship with Defence Force personnel in his community. The member for Solomon is a good bloke who coaches the local Defence Force football team and gets on very well with the community. He has been a great advocate for the Defence Force community in Darwin whilst he has been the member.

Prior to the last election, the Labor Party made a decision, based on its view that we needed to do more for Defence Force families, that what we should do is provide progressive access to basic medical and dental care to spouses and children of Australian Defence Force personnel. After the election, we reviewed our commitment, took advice from the department and from Defence Force families across Australia and made a decision that we would not proceed in the way we had originally intended. Instead, unlike the members opposite, who do not have a policy in this area, who are not committed to assisting Defence Force families—who are not committed and nor have they committed themselves to supporting a program to provide access to free basic medical and dental care to Defence Force families, even though they are critics of ours—what we have chose to do, as a result of a review of our commitment and understanding the desires of the Defence Force community for choice and flexibility, is to provide capacity for Defence Force families on a trial basis, initially in five locations—

See this speech in context