Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the little bit over two years since I've been elected to this place, I've seen a lot of change. Put the COVID-19 pandemic change aside; there is also the change that we've seen in our international geopolitical situation. Along with the Defence 2020 Strategic Update, we've seen the epicentre become the centre of the Indo-Pacific region. We've seen a $270 billion spend, the largest since the Second World War, on maintaining our defensive posture in that centre of the Indo-Pacific region. But at the centre of that huge record spend are people: those brave men and women who literally raise their hands in defence of our nation. They go to a recruiting office, raise their right hand and swear, by oath or affirmation, that they will defend Australia, its people, its government, its Queen and heirs and successors according to law, so help me God. Once they make that commitment then they give the prime of their life to defending our nation. We as a nation need to stand by them and we need to make a commitment to them, because their situation has also changed. It's that change, Minister, that I'd like to speak about this evening.

We've seen over the last two years that the volume of claims has more than doubled from around 50,000 in 2017-18 to more than 121,000 in 2019-20. Over this time, the government has continually supplemented DVA's resourcing to address the increased workload, providing more than $54 million over two years of increased staffing. Building on this investment, the 2021-22 budget includes an additional $98½ million to provide DVA with a significant increase in staffing to address the backlog of claims and manage the increased workload. This funding will see an increase of more than 440 positions, with a significant proportion being allocated to claims processing. This is important. We need to get onto their claims and expedite them. We need to help them make that transition from the big family that they had in the military and that loyal commitment that they made to the defence of our nation. We need to stand by them once they exit defence. This spend that I talk about is the largest single increase in DVA resourcing in decades. It reinforces what this government continually invests in, and that is veterans' support and putting veterans—and, more importantly, veterans and their families—first. This is important.

I also want to talk about some of the additional considerations that we've made as a government. The fact is that we've helped veterans transition and translate their skills, their knowledge and the qualifications that they earned in the military into the civilian world, making their transition from the defence family into the civilian population easier. We've also invested money in trying to help families along the way, because families play an important part of that transition as the veteran makes that important leap from the big military to the big civilian world. Minister, can you please advise how many additional resources were funded as part of that $98½ million for the Department of Veterans' Affairs? Will these additional resources directly assist with the current backlog of claims? I want to know, and I think Australia needs to know, whether this money is going to trickle down and be spent at the coalface, where it's really needed. Is it going to reduce claims and claim times? Is it going to help veterans? Is it going to help their families? Are we going to do the right thing as a government? Are we going to do the right thing as a nation?

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