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

I thank the member for his question. I know about his deep appreciation of the importance of dealing appropriately with serving veterans and with former serving veterans. I go back for a moment, if I may, to the health initiative announced through the white paper and in this budget. As well as expanding the mental health non-liability cover, there is a post discharge GP health assessment. This initiative will support a health assessment fitness check for all ADF members after discharge and the fitness check will be supported by a health screening tool with a mental health component which will be developed for use by GPs. The check will be supported through existing Medicare items. I will not go through the detail of that—I may do later—or through the changes to the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service. One of the things we are doing, which will be of interest to you, is developing the Peer-to-Peer Support network. This initiative is a program to support the recovery of clients with a mental health condition by providing a non-clinical support network. Building on the experience of a successful men's health peer education program, the Peer-to-Peer Support network enables individuals to be assisted by their peers without judgment or stigma attached to the relationship as it is based on mutual understanding and experience.

One of the things we have learnt and we know the RSL accepts—and this goes to your question about how you provide access for people after they have served—is that it is true, unfortunately, that many serving men and women and former serving men and women in a younger age cohort do not see the direct relevance of the RSL. There is a capacity now for serving men and women who are overseas to become online members of the RSL and that is a positive thing, and we are providing, through the relationship between Defence and DVA, on-base support officers in all the major bases across the country. The on-base support officers are DVA employees who provide advice and assistance to current serving men and women. As a former serving man, the shadow minister would know that there are people of the highest rank in this country who are claimants in the DVA system because of injuries incurred while they were in service. It is part of the way we deal with current serving men and women. We have discovered that, as a result of having the on-base advisory services on base for 18 months or so, they provide a unique space for connecting Defence personnel with ex-service organisations. I must say that at Holsworthy the Vietnam Veterans organisation has almost a full-time presence and the DVA on-base advisory person works closely with that organisation—so they pick them up.

But we do have a challenge, and it is an enormous challenge, about how we track people once they leave the service. This is an obligation which we have because we want to make sure. Effectively, once you go through a recruitment centre and walk through the gates at Wagga for your initial training, you are potentially a client of the Commonwealth till you are dead. That is an important thing to understand. If you put the uniform on, you can expect to be looked after all your life if you have an accident, are injured, are wounded or whatever, and if you are killed your family will get support. For them, that is until the partners are no longer with us. So it is very, very important that we have a seamless transition and we try and track those people who are serving, beyond service, and provide them with the support they desire. I know that we will be doing the DVA bit shortly, and I will come to that in more detail. (Time expired)

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