Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) Share this | Hansard source

As Labor's longstanding policy, we will be supporting the appropriation legislation, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2019-2020 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2019-2020. Historically that has been our position and it remains our position today.

But as the shadow minister for veterans affairs and Defence personnel I want to take the opportunity to talk about issues facing our current and ex-serving men and women and the government's failures across this space. I've been making a point of getting around and meeting as many Defence personnel and veterans as possible to see what they're doing and hear what they think is best for them, their families and their communities. Obviously one of the issues is veterans' mental health and the alarming suicide rate. They have been receiving a lot of media attention, and rightly so. The high number of veteran suicides is a national shame and a personal tragedy for the individuals concerned and their families. There have been more than 400 since 2001, though anecdotally we suspect that there are many, many more. This is significantly more deaths than occurred for ADF personnel on overseas operations during this period.

That's why late last year, having listened to families affected, Labor announced that we would back a royal commission into the issue, and we called on the government to establish one. So we were a bit intrigued when, on 5 February, the Prime Minister announced that the government would establish a new permanent National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention. We've cautiously welcomed the proposal and said we were happy to look at the detail. But like others, including veterans' suicide royal commission campaigner Julie-Ann Finney, we've become increasingly concerned that this is not better than a royal commission, as the government has claimed. The government has some work to do to convince us and the public that they're genuine about this space and taking action accordingly.

We know the devil will be in the detail, so we urge the government to address the concerns of Ms Finney and other veterans' families quickly, to release the enabling legislation and the terms of reference as soon as possible and to consult widely and wisely on this matter. We call on the government to put this on the next COAG agenda, because there will be need to deal with the states and territories, particularly in the area of coronial inquiries, police investigations and the like. We will then be able to see if the commissioner will indeed have all the powers of a royal commission, as the government has announced. But better still why not just announce a royal commission so we can get to the bottom of veterans' suicides and deliver accountability and justice for veterans and their families?

On a related note, the government committed to developing a new mental health and wellbeing strategy and national action plan by the end of last year. Labor support this, and I've met with the minister to provide input. But the government has dithered, delayed and failed to meet its own deadline. The latest was that the Department of Veterans' Affairs was to provide a draft strategy and action plan to the government at some indeterminate date this year. Just when we'll see the final strategy is anyone's guess, and frankly, with its proposal for a new national veterans' suicide commissioner, the government needs to get on with the job and deliver this as soon as possible.

We also know that there are serious problems with DVA and the veteran support system. In Senate estimates in October last year, Labor exposed that the government had failed to deliver an election commitment to cut waiting times for claims through the DVA and streamline processes through the new MyService system. DVA officials revealed that overall waiting times for processing claims had blown out in recent times, and we've seen reports that simply allocating a file can take up to 75 days. The secretary of the department has admitted that the department has been hit hard by ongoing funding and staffing cuts, which has driven a massive outsourcing and casualisation of DVA's workforce, with around 45 per cent of staff now being non-permanent APS employees and 26 per cent being labour hire contractors. DVA has had more than 16 per cent of its secure jobs cut since the LNP came to power here in Canberra in 2013, which has seriously eroded the capacity of the department to deliver its service. This is simply unsustainable. It's frustrating for us that this government has been in office for nearly seven years and is now playing catch-up and desperately trying to come up with a plan in its third term.

Be that as it may, we're willing to work with the government and the veterans' community in as bipartisan a way as we possibly can to address the important issues of veteran's health and wellbeing. That's why Labor took to the last election a range of policies in this space. We committed $31 million to develop seven veterans' wellbeing centres across Australia, including in Townsville, Ipswich and elsewhere. The government embraced this policy, with six veterans' wellbeing centres, although the details still remain sketchy and the progress slow. Interestingly, in my electorate, in Ipswich, we were left off the government's list of veterans' hubs. The government reneged on a commitment that they announced in 2016 election to deliver one. I have told the minister for veterans affairs directly that we need additional centres where there are significant ex-service communities.

I will touch on a few other hot topics where I have recently received significant feedback from veterans. First, following the release of the Productivity Commission report on the veterans support system on 4 July last year, the government committed to provide a response as soon as possible. It's now been more than eight months and we're still waiting. The government is yet to make a formal response. The PC report had a number of worthy recommendations, but it also included a number of recommendations that Labor cannot support. This includes scrapping the Gold Card for dependents and outsourcing the administration and monitoring of the veterans support system to an independent statutory agency, which the PC calls a 'veterans service commission'. Both of these proposals are very unpopular with veterans and I have called on the minister to rule them out. Regrettably, he has failed to do so, which has only created further anxiety in the community.

Secondly the government is sitting on a review of the totally and permanently incapacitated—TPI—or special rate disability pension, and it has presided over a whitewash in the form of an inquiry into the Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits Scheme. Labor supported these reviews in principle, but given that both were announced just before the election we questioned the government's commitment and suspected it was just another example of government kicking the can down the road and seeking to placate veterans accordingly, hoping that they would haven't to deal with the issue after the election. Since then we had concerns that the terms of reference of the reviews have not stressed all the concerns raised by veterans and there's not been adequate consultation. We know the Prime Minister received the final TPI review in August last year, following an earlier secret KPMG report. It's been sitting on the Prime Minister's desk for more than six months. I call on him to release the review and the government's response as soon as possible to provide certainty for our TPI veterans. What is the Prime Minister hiding in relation to this matter? Release the review.

The DFRDB inquiry conducted by the Commonwealth Ombudsman concluded in early December last year. I'm pleased that the government and Defence apologised for the dodgy and misleading advice that many DFRDB scheme members received. The government admitted that it has caused a lot of confusion and distress for people over the years. It's clear that ADF members relied on advice from Defence to make critical decisions about their retirement, and they were let down badly. We know that many veterans are very unhappy with the review's finding that they did not experience a financial loss as a result of bad advice and that this doesn't warrant financial compensation. If they have suffered financial loss, it's no wonder the government's done nothing to assist them. I can assure the government that these veterans are very unhappy with the government. The government should be working with those veterans to compensate them if they have suffered some form of detriment, so that if there has been defective administration they are capable of getting compensation for detriment caused by that defective administration. But there's no evidence—none whatsoever—that the government's been working with veterans communities to see whether any of those veterans have suffered any form of detriment.

On the Defence personnel side of the portfolio, last year we were shocked to hear that the government had decided to abolish the well-respected Defence Reserves Support Council—the DRSC—to essentially replace it with an in-house Defence appointed body. For more than 40 years the DRSC has played an important role in increasing understanding and support for reserves, including having regional organisations and employer and employee organisations represented on the council. This announcement was made late on a Friday afternoon under the cover of another secret KPMG review, so you can see a bit of a pattern developing here. The DRSC national council members were shown the KPMG report only days before the announcement as a fait accompli, and they were effectively given their marching orders. This is an absolute disgrace, and the government's handling of this and the treatment of the DRSC has been utterly appalling.

Finally, there has been a lot of interest in and concern about the new veterans card. I know there's been a mixed response to the card and the associated lapel pin among veterans, and I've received a fair bit of negative feedback about it. Labor broadly welcomed the launch late last year—or the relaunch, relaunch and relaunch again—of the card and the discount scheme, which are intended to provide veterans with access to a range of offers and benefits from participating businesses. But it has taken far too long for the government to roll this out, and again we question the government's commitment and the urgency to deliver it.

The relaunch on 3 November was the third time the government had recycled this announcement since it was first announced. It was announced in October last year and it had been announced during the election campaign. Three times they have announced this. At the outset, no businesses were on board, and even now there are few details on how the card will interact with other, existing discount schemes and what advantage the card will have over other programs. The government even attached the card to enabling legislation which was introduced by the government into parliament last year, in February, only for it to lapse, of course, when the election was called and parliament was prorogued. After the election, the bill was reintroduced, and the government insisted it was a priority for the new government. It was only passed on 22 October last year, with Labor support.

So, in the end, veterans had to wait for more than a year to see the veterans card after it was first announced, and, even then, the government and DVA completely bungled the rollout. Other MPs and I—and, I'm sure, those opposite—have received numerous complaints from people about the complicated and cumbersome application process. It turns out each veteran needs to be a client of DVA first and apply online via DVA's MyService portal, and needs to have an email address. Based on the comments we've heard from the Prime Minister and the minister, it could be argued that the veterans card and lapel pin were designed simply as a mechanism to count veterans and gather more data on them. Launching something that many veterans don't want and forcing them to apply for it online is not the best way to gather information about them. I note the next census will include a question that identifies veterans, and so it should; I welcome that. It will be a much more transparent and effective way of understanding how many veterans we have.

On top of the other requirements just to get the card, veterans need to sign up to the Australian Partners of Defence, APOD, platform and create an account before they can start accessing discounts. Clearly, this makes it very difficult for older veterans who might not have access to computers or the internet or have an email address. Once you've jumped through all of these hoops and you've got your card, many of the discounts offered are pretty paltry, such as maybe a dollar off a $100 supermarket purchase. Further, a number of veterans in regional areas in my electorate of Blair have pointed out that they will not benefit as much as people living in major centres, where there are more participating businesses. As one advocate put it recently, 'The veterans card isn't what the veterans were told it would be—a bone fide recognition program—given it's not much better than the general public can get.'

The latest instalment of this saga is that the minister has written to MPs asking them to approach small businesses in their own electorates and ask them to participate in this discount scheme. It sounds fine in theory, but it's just another example of the government shifting onto MPs' offices the cost of delivering a program and drumming up support. We've seen a number of grant programs of late, and it is simply unreasonable to expect MPs and their staff to do the legwork for government departments.

Labor hope the veterans card and discount scheme doesn't turn out to be the tokenistic policy, the thought bubble, we feared it would be when it was announced. Unfortunately, this seems to be an incompetent and secretive government that has failed to deliver for veterans. It seems to be a government determined to outsource policy responsibilities of departments to independent agencies and a government determined to privatise when it can. Make no mistake, we honour those who have fallen and we need to look after the living—Labor will always stand with you. We want to be as bipartisan as we possibly can, but there are differences, and we do have some serious criticisms of the way the government is handling the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

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