Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by acknowledging all the men and women around the nation who have worn the uniform or continue to wear the uniform in service to this nation, and I want to acknowledge their families, who are the backbone of the defence community. Our soldiers know their mission remains fixed: determined, unbreakable, it is to win our wars. Almost everything outside of our military career will not hold such gravity as this vital dedication and service to this nation. Our soldiers are the ones we look to to train, to fight. Their skill set is in the profession of arms; their will to win, the sure knowledge that there is no substitute for victory.

There are more than 31,000 defence personnel, veterans and their families living in Townsville. Townsville is a proud garrison city with a long military heritage. We have served the Australian people for many years, in many wars, through many natural disasters. We have had soldiers killed in action, wounded in combat, injured in training, and those that have died by suicide. Improving the wellbeing of veterans and their families should not just be words; it should be enshrined in all of us here, every day, to better support the people that have fought for our freedoms, our democracy, our way of life—the people that we put in harm's way to ensure that we can sleep safely and soundly in our beds at night.

I deployed to East Timor and Afghanistan. I witnessed firsthand the commitment and dedication of the men and women of our armed forces—commitment and dedication on the battlefield, which is difficult for the community who are left behind to see and fully understand. We built schools for girls, wells for community; we fought the enemy. Just recently we had our soldiers from Townsville—from the First Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, my former unit—in Afghanistan on an extremely dangerous rescue mission. Our brave men and women answered the nation's call to go into harm's way, where the rule of law has failed, and to rescue people that helped us in Afghanistan. This mission was like no other. We haven't seen an operation of this magnitude for a very long time. They did a fantastic job and an honourable job. We as a grateful nation owe a great debt to our soldiers. We have also seen just recently soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, based in Townsville deployed to the Solomon Islands to help the people of the Solomon Islands during civil unrest.

Some of the best times of my life were in the Defence Force, and also some of the hardest challenges I've faced were when I was transitioned out. Our defence family, whether we served together or just share that experience, are people that I call family—people I represent here in this place and people who look to me to ensure their voices are heard. For those who have been injured from their service, we must do better.

This bill, the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Exempting Disability Payments from Income Testing and Other Measures) Bill 2021 does a small bit in doing better. This bill implements the recommendations of the review by Mr David Tune. This bill will allow veterans on this compensation to access housing assistance, which they hadn't been able to do before. These provisions are to remove the means test imposed on rent assistance for certain veterans and dependants. Many will now be eligible for rent assistance or an increased rate of rent assistance. It is to our nation's shame that veterans would be homeless, sleeping rough or not able to get rent assistance. So this bill goes an extra step in the right direction to ensure that the people we in this place call on to do our bidding can get the supports that they deserve. Rent assistance is a supplementary payment to the service pension, income support supplement and veteran payment recipients who pay private rent that exceeds a certain threshold. Disability pension and permanent impairment payment recipients have these compensation payments taken into account in the calculation of any rent assistance paid with the service pension, income support pension or veteran payment. These disability compensation payments can reduce the rent assistance payable if an individual's compensation payment rate exceeds a certain threshold.

This bill simplifies the absolute complexity of what people have to go through. This is to really streamline things and make it easier for our service personnel and our veterans to get the help they need. It is clunky. The opposition agree. We on this side agree. This has been clunky for a long time, and it has been complex. This bill is to help streamline the processes for our soldiers and our veterans, the ones who could be overseas right now, who one day may fall on hard times and need assistance through rent assistance.

This bill also includes a measure to implement a two-year trial of non-liability rehabilitation. This will enable veterans participating in the trial to access DVA rehabilitation services earlier, without the need to make a claim for compensation or await a determination of liability.

The changes relating to disability compensation payments will cost $33.3 million. Who cares, to be honest? There is no figure or number that needs to be thrown around when we are talking about supporting our veterans and our soldiers. When it comes to supporting those who support us through wars, from wars before my time, before I was born, to ones I have been involved in to ones that could potentially happen in the future, there is no number.

The purpose of this bill is to exempt certain disability pensions paid under the VEA, the Veterans' Entitlement Act, and the MRCA, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, from the social security income test. Removing an income test that applies to rent assistance paid to some veterans' disability pension receipts will allow those receiving higher rates of disability compensation to receive higher rent assistance. There are changes to references to 'disability pension' in the VEA to the term 'pensions by the way of compensation to veterans and their dependants'. You can already see where we're going here. This is clunky, right? So streamlining this will make it a lot easier for veterans who are looking at this bill to understand it and to understand what they're entitled to. It will also help the department and the states that we'll be working with to really understand it. Not everyone's a veteran, not everyone has served, and not everyone fully understands the difference between when we're talking about compensation and when we're talking about pensions. This makes it a little bit easier.

I think establishing the pilot program, or the trial, is a good step in the right direction, but I'd like to see that trial become fixed. Once again, I don't want to see a trial happen and then us try and wind anything back. I think we should be opening the gamut of services to our bravest. The people that put on the uniform, our brave men and women, do it every day. And you hear stories—not just overseas but inside Australia—like when the floods happened in Townsville and soldiers' houses were flooded. They didn't even go to their houses to remove their stuff, because they were too busy helping someone else down the road. It's a selfless sacrifice to your community and to your nation, to always put someone else first and the community first. This bill is about putting our people first, the ones we ask to go into harm's way—the ones we ask to go to where the cyclone is and clean up, the ones we ask to go and help out with COVID-19 Assist, the ones we ask to go and help out with floods and natural disasters. This is about supporting our soldiers.

One thing that I'll leave on, and I'll depart on here, is that it's okay not to be okay. It's okay to have a bad day, it's okay to have a mental illness, but it's not okay to suffer in silence. We must change how we view and how we speak and how we act when it comes to mental wellbeing, when it comes to mental illness, when it comes to suicide prevention and stigma. We must, in this place, be leaders in that. Debating, and going back and forward, is not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is having the courage to stand up and support each other when the bad times happen. We all have them here. We all miss our families; we've all had lockdowns, like our communities have. But we, in this place, need to be the change agents and be leaders in our community, and say, 'It's okay if you're not travelling okay, but you must speak to someone. You must.'

It's an ever-changing world and we have high rates of suicide in the veterans community, but I want to see leaders in this place work together to ensure that the stigma is gone. Stand up, put your hand up, if you're not tracking well. That's cool; there are places where you can get help.

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