Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Science and Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs is part of the government that blew the budget. The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs is one of the people who signed off on the $14 billion cash splash that probably took away the opportunity for this government to provide an increase in the military superannuation arrangements. So today, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, when you come into this House to sum up this bill, provide a response to your report. You have seen the emails that are going around that outline that you, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, have failed to address their concerns; that you, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, have ignored their requests; that you, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, have gone from being their pin-up boy to being a person of shame. I ask you today to come into this House and provide a response. You should not have to wear the burden of this on your own, as the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. The Minister for Defence Personnel, Materiel and Science should also come into this House and put forward his response to the review into military superannuation arrangements report, because jointly you have responsibility.

The person who has the most responsibility and who is most accountable in this would have to be the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, because when he was in opposition he was the person who singularly said that three months was too long. He said that three months was too long to deliver a response. As I said, on Monday, 24 August, it will be 20 months since the report was handed down. We have seen 20 months of inaction. How many more months of inaction will we see before the issues surrounding defence superannuation payments are addressed? The veterans are not asking for much. They are asking for it to be changed from a CPI index to the MTAWE index.

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