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

I thank the member for his very important question and very much recognise the place he comes from as an experienced member dealing with veterans' issues as a former minister for veterans'' affairs who very much put himself on the line when making sure he was standing up for getting services for veterans.

As the member pointed out, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide went to and spoke about the importance of dealing with more holistic wellbeing and care for the veteran community. Certainly, when we went to the 2022 election and made our commitment to rolling out 10 veterans and families hubs across the country, we made sure that we selected locations based on the highest concentration of veterans and families around the country as the priority areas to focus on and rolling out those hubs. It means that we are now in the progress of already having open and rolled out some 17 veterans and families hubs. I really like to emphasise the point that these are hubs to support services for veterans—and families as well.

In the final report of the royal commission there were a number of recommendations that went to veteran and family wellbeing—in particular, recommendations going to the ongoing operation of the veterans and families hubs and tying them into the work of one of the other recommendations, which was to establish a specialist wellbeing agency within the Department of Veterans' Affairs. The government has already accepted that recommendation, and we've funded DVA to conduct the co-design work with the veteran community to ensure that there is proper consultation across the veteran community with what that wellbeing agency will look like and how it will interface with the veteran and family hub network across Australia to make sure that veterans—no matter where they are located—are able to access the supports they need to have improved wellbeing.

In that end, I am certainly very happy to meet with the member for Calare and to come out and meet with the Bathurst and Orange RSLs so that I can understand and we can make sure that we are delivering the sorts of wellbeing benefits, services and supports that veterans in your area—just as we want, across the entire country, our veterans and families to get the service and support that they need and deserve. I look forward to coming out to your community to meet with your veteran community as well.

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