Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak today on the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Omnibus) Bill 2018. As I think the member for Kingston has rightly pointed out, all of us in this House have great regard and deep admiration for the service of our veterans to this country over more than the past 100 years.

I would like to take this opportunity also to commend my colleague, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Darren Chester, for the work that he's continuing to undertake to ensure that our veterans, and their relationships with the Department of Veterans' Affairs, are the best they could be. This will ensure that our veterans get the services, support and, importantly, the access to the compensation they so rightly deserve.

In my local electorate of Forde I have a great number of ex-service organisations which provide tremendous support and assistance to the veteran and ex-service community. It's important that they do so, because these people do need support. Every year across the nation, at services for both Anzac Day and Remembrance Day—and at other events—we see their service to our country marked. I would like to acknowledge the work of the Beenleigh RSL, the Greenbank RSL and North Gold Coast RSL Sub-Branch for the time and effort that they give to engage with and support our local veteran and ex-service communities. The work that they do to support people, sometimes in very difficult circumstances, cannot be underestimated, and I want to commend them for their work. There are people like Alan Hendy, who has for many years been a veterans' advocate at the Beenleigh RSL in particular. He is a regular correspondent to me, and is always more than happy to share with me the issues that they are having with the department on various matters. I appreciate the fact that he takes the time to represent his community to me so that I have the opportunity to represent their concerns to my colleagues here.

As we recognise our veterans' service, the importance of this bill is that it's aimed at improving the outcomes not only for our veterans and ex-service men and women but also those serving today. It's designed to ensure that essential services are available to them when they need them most. The proposed reforms seek to achieve several things, with the focus on streamlining the claims process and providing veterans with certainty about their entitlements.

At present, a serving member who sustains an injury or illness in service may make a claim with the Department of Veterans' Affairs. This bill contains three schedules which introduce several new initiatives to improve the efficiency of the claims process, making it simpler and easier—to truly make a difference to the lives of our veterans and their families. It also aims to increase the availability of information to the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission in order to make a determination on claims, streamlining the DSS and DVA approaches to exempting certain payments from the income test.

This bill makes it easier for incidents and injuries to be reported to the Department of Veterans' Affairs at the time of the injury by enabling the Chief of the Defence Force to make a claim for compensation on behalf of the serving member, improving the information the DVA holds and enhancing the ability to analyse future trends and conditions in service to further streamline the claims process.

I know from the discussions I have had with Alan and others at my local RSL organisations that this particular issue is one of the great causes of angst and concern for veterans, in that if they have suffered an injury or illness during their service the transfer of those records from the military to the DVA has not been efficient or timely. If they are chasing around for records it can actually take a significant period of time, and that delays the capacity of the veteran to receive the compensation or support that is rightly due to them. This provision, importantly, helps the department address time-sensitive cases involving serious injury or disease, where the CDF can step in and exercise their power to lodge a claim on behalf of a member who has a reduced capacity to do so themselves.

As I've just outlined, one of the obstacles in determining claims has been establishing that the contributing incident actually happened, especially where a claim is first lodged many years after an injury. There's already in place a system for the DVA to seek records from Defence, but, as I've just said, this can take time and can be very frustrating for the veteran involved. I see this as one of the most important aspects of this bill, in that the transfer of records will occur in a much more timely and efficient manner, so that if a veteran does have to make a claim, or an ex-service person does have to make a claim in future, DVA should already have those records. Because those records are created at the time of the incident or the illness, they'll have much more clarity, and it will be much easier for DVA to make a quick decision to ensure that the support and/or compensation that is due to the veteran is paid in a timely manner. The amendments will also improve the DVA's ability to request information, enabling claims to be determined in the quickest possible time. It's important to note that the privacy rights of individual DVA clients will not be impacted or altered by this measure.

The last schedule of the bill will amend the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 to allow certain exempt lump sum determinations made by the secretary of the Department of Social Services to apply to DVA income support clients when applying the income test. Currently, the commission often implements separate yet identical exempt lump sum determinations for payments that have already been exempted under the Social Security Act by the secretary of the Department of Social Services. Currently some lump sums received by people on Commonwealth income support payments are exempt from the income test for income support payments. The Veterans' Entitlements Act and the Social Security Act have identical provisions allowing for these exemptions. Again, this is a commonsense measure which simplifies the ability of the department to make these exemptions or recognise exemptions that are already in place without having to make a separate determination. This, again, is designed to make the process easier for veterans, which is what we should always be looking to do. It will mean that the DVA can rely on an exemption made under the Social Security Act, rather than having to make their own separate identical determination. The current practice of redrafting and registering identical lump sum exemptions is an unnecessary regulatory burden on the DVA that this bill seeks to remove.

I know all in this place support and recognise the service of our veterans. The value of this bill is that it goes a little bit further towards ensuring that our veterans get the support and services they need. With DVA undertaking reforms to improve the efficiency of claims for veterans and their families, it's important that across this chamber we support their work with the amendments to the law necessary to make a real difference to the lives of thousands of Australian veterans and ex-service men and women. I believe this bill provides some important changes that better support the DVA to ensure that, in a timely and efficient manner, they take care of and provide support to our veterans and ex-service men and women.

In concluding my remarks, I want again to thank those men and women who have served our country so wonderfully over so many years. I commend the bill to the House.

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