Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for her question and acknowledge her great advocacy for the veterans across her electorate and region. I've had the great pleasure of being able to meet many of the RSLs in her area, and it's been great to work with her on the progress of the hub that'll be going into her region as well. The member for Corangamite, like our entire government, is committed to providing the service and supports to the veteran community that they not only need but deserve. That is so critically important.

When we came into government we inherited a circumstance where DVA was critically underfunded and underresourced. Indeed, to give credit to my predecessor, the member for Calare, who sits on the crossbench, he was calling it out, even when they were in government. So, over the past three years we have been able to achieve a great deal together. We've eliminated that claims backlog that we inherited because of the underresourcing of DVA.

We've also got down to acting on all the recommendations contained in the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide's interim report. Critically, we have passed the Veterans' Entitlements, Treatment and Support (Simplification and Harmonisation) Act, moving three different complex pieces of legislation that support our veterans into, from the middle of next year, one system, so it's easier for veterans and families to know what they're entitled to, easier for advocates to support them and quicker for the Department of Veterans' Affairs to process those claims and get veterans and their families the support that they need and that they deserve.

Crucially, when we received the final report of the royal commission in September last year we acted swiftly. By December we had provided the government's formal response, agreeing—or agreeing in principle—to 104 of the 122 recommendations, noting 17 of those recommendations for further work and establishing a taskforce in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to work across government on how government would go about implementing these recommendations for our veteran community.

Now we're building on what the Albanese government did in its first term. Beginning earlier this year, we legislated the establishment of the Defence and Veterans' Services Commission. This implements recommendation 122 of the royal commission, which the royal commission said was its most important recommendation. We've also appointed the interim commissioner into that role. The Department of Veterans' Affairs has been undertaking the consultation needed on co-design for a new wellbeing agency to be established within the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

When we were in opposition we campaigned for the royal commission to be established, and we will work tirelessly now to ensure that the government's response to that royal commission will be implemented so that our nation's veterans continue to receive the supports—and receive even more supports—that they need and deserve.

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