Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner Bill 2025, notwithstanding that the coalition will be moving some amendments in relation to the reporting date of the commissioner in the legislation. At the outset, I want to say, simply, 'Thank you for your service,' to the men and women in the Australian Defence Force and our veteran community and particularly to their families who support them. I thank the members in this place who have served in uniform as well. Thank you for what you've done in your previous career and for bringing that expertise and lived experience to either the House of Representatives or the Senate.

The purpose of the Department of Veterans' Affairs is to put in place a system of support for our veterans and their families if it's required. I emphasise the point 'if it's required', because a large number of our service personnel will train well, serve well, be deployed, defend the values of our nation and then transition well and go on to live exceptionally successful civilian lives. But, if they're fed a diet of hopelessness and helplessness, which is often the case in the Australian mainstream media, they sometimes get the feeling that there's no help available to them whatsoever. That is simply not true. I say to anyone who may be listening to this debate that, if you are a veteran and you do need help, help is available. Please reach out through your ex-service organisation or through DVA directly because help is available to you if it's required. In the veterans covenant, there is a term which is very simple. It says:

For what they have done, this we will do.

That is the promise we make, as Australians who haven't served in uniform, that we have this contract with the Australian Defence Force personnel and their families:

For what they have done, this we will do.

That contract requires us to support them after their service—and, obviously, during their service as well.

Those support measures will change over time. Just as our society is changing constantly—sometimes for good, sometimes for worse—the needs of our Defence Force personnel and our veterans will change as well. What a young veteran needs on transition to the civilian workforce is going to be very different to the supports required by a 95- or 98-year-old World War II veteran. We need to acknowledge that the DVA system is there to support veterans through the entire course of their lives as their needs change as well.

I do want to acknowledge that the legislation before the House is intended to make sure there is proper oversight, accountability and transparency, in this place, around the systems put in place by DVA to support our veterans and their families. An independent commissioner has enormous opportunities to make sure that their system remains fit for purpose into the future. Our veterans make a huge contribution during their service, but they also make an amazing contribution when they leave the service and in their civilian lives. It is so important that they are supported in that transition phase.

I say this in the minister's presence: I am sure that, just like me, in his role, the need to reduce the level of self-harm and the need to eliminate suicide is an ongoing battle. There is no acceptable level of suicide amongst Australian Defence Force personnel and veterans, and I'm sure the minister agrees with me that we need to keep working towards zero. That is a challenge that we need to address in a bipartisan way across this chamber. I'm sure it's going to surprise some people listening to hear me say this, but there is an amazing amount of bipartisanship on this portfolio issue—this area of key responsibility. My office works very closely with Minister Keogh's office, and we have a very good working relationship. There have been times in recent months where we've disagreed vehemently, but it was professional, and we got on with our roles. But, wherever possible, there will be bipartisanship between this side of the House and the government of the day in terms of our veterans and their families. Our No. 1 interest has to be making sure veterans and their families are well supported as they move onto civilian lives.

Having said that, I'll also note, in the minister's presence, that most of the easy stuff has been done. In this portfolio, everything's complex, everything is difficult, everything involves personal challenges for the people involved, and the system isn't always fit for purpose. The challenge of reforming it is not something that I suggest for a second is a walk in the park. I do wish him success in his tenure because, if the minister is successful as the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, our veterans will flourish. Their wellbeing will improve; the families will do better. I sincerely do extend my best wishes to the minister in his role as he seeks to try and improve the system of support for veterans and their families.

It's important, as we gather today, to talk about this legislation, to acknowledge a couple of simple facts as well. This is not a new idea. Those opposite might think that the world was created on the day the Albanese government came to office in 2022, but, let me assure you, some good things happened before that. This idea—this concept—of a national commissioner was actually included in coalition introduced legislation back in 2020. That bill, which proposed an independent statutory oversight body, with basically exactly the same structural features now being implemented today, was opposed by the Labor Party at that time. I was disappointed as minister that that occurred. I think it was opposed for political reasons. I was frustrated by the decision that the opposition took at that time, because the delays in implementing this independent commissioner have resulted in delays in having an independent statutory oversight body for the system. It matters because, working alongside the royal commission, we could have accelerated system reform in that period of four or five years.

It's fair to say that the coalition supports the national commissioner model being presented today, because it was our idea. It was our idea, and it came from feedback and from the lived experience of veterans and their families. I didn't make it up. It wasn't something I dreamed up one night by myself. It came about through feedback from ex-service organisations. It had strong support in the veteran community, but we weren't successful in getting it legislated back in 2020. I say to the chamber—and I say with all sincerity to our veterans community—the coalition will always look to find ways to put veterans and their families first, and we will support the government in this legislation with the amendment we're proposing, which I'll get to later on.

Our record as a coalition in terms of supporting veterans and their wellbeing is substantial. In our time in government, there were some substantial reforms by me as minister and other ministers on the coalition side, despite the rhetoric we hear from those opposite from time to time. During our time in government, the role of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs was actually in cabinet, and I think it's a mistake to not have it in cabinet. I'm not solely motivated by my best wishes for the minister's political career, but the minister should be in cabinet. There are 600,000 veterans in this country plus their families. The Minister for Veterans' Affairs should be in cabinet.

In our time in government, the support for our veterans and their families was in the order of $11 billion per year. There was the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, which was established under the Morrison government. We introduced and passed the veterans' recognition act of 2019. We provided free non-liability mental health care for our veterans. We expanded and modernised Open Arms, the veterans counselling service. We initiated the Psychiatric Assistance Dog Program, which has been very well received and has resulted in literally hundreds of veterans receiving the benefit of a psychiatric assistance dog. The veterans themselves and their families have written to me personally and thanked me for that in some of the most beautiful letters I've received as a member.

We also established the Prime Minister's National Veteran Employment Awards, which I note have continued, and I thank the government for doing that. We launched the Veteran Wellbeing Centre Program, and the current government has added to the Veteran Wellbeing Centre Program. I encourage them to keep doing that, because I think those hubs are very important for providing accessible areas for our veterans, particularly in regional areas, to get the support they need when they need it. We created the role of veterans family advocate. We committed $500 million to the Australian War Memorial redevelopment, which will ensure the stories of our contemporary veterans are told in a timely manner.

We established the Joint Transition Authority, which is designed to make sure Defence is held more accountable for that critical time when our members leave the Defence Force and go into civilian life. We delivered provisional access to medical treatment. We increased the fees for health professionals. We improved financial support for veterans undertaking additional education. We boosted staffing and resources across the Department of Veterans' Affairs to speed up the claims processing.

We also added, for the first time, a question in the census to track the number of veterans in Australia. You'd think that would be a minor point, but, up until the 2021 census, we didn't know how many veterans we had in Australia. So simply adding that question to the census gave us the capacity to, first of all, measure the number of veterans in Australia—people who served at least one day in the Australian Defence Force—but also track where they are, in the sense of making sure services are provided in a manner that fits the veteran population in those communities. While it may seem like a small point, it's something I think will assist DVA and the minister in his role going forward. And I note, as I said earlier, that work in this space will never really be finished, because the needs of modern veterans will change. They'll be different to previous generations.

We support the extra scrutiny and the transparency in a timely manner, which is at the core of the appointment of a Defence and Veterans' Service Commissioner who is going to be separate and independent from the department and separate from the minister. I flagged earlier that we'll also be moving amendment, and the amendment is quite a simple one. We'll be moving to bring forward the timing of the first implementation review by the commissioner. We're not aiming to hinder the passage of the bills, but, as currently drafted, the first assessment of the government's implementation of the royal commission's recommendations is not required to be completed until December 2027. That means that while the government may get the report in December 2027 it may not be tabled for many months after that; we could be well into 2028 before we see the report. We fear that's a bit slow and we feel it's a bit risky in terms of weakening accountability, and we'd be much more comfortable if we could bring that reporting date forward to no later than 30 September 2026.

Our view there is that veterans and their families were promised urgent reform out of the royal commission, and, unfortunately, royal commission reports in this country have a habit of sitting on a desk and eventually being forgotten about. We think bringing forward the reporting date—and that would coincide with the two-year anniversary of the royal commission's tabling of its findings—is a better way of ensuring that veterans and their families have confidence that the bureaucracy in Canberra is not slowing this down, that the commissioner will report back to the Australian public in a more timely manner. We will be able to see some evidence of what's been implemented and where we need to hurry things up a bit, and if there are any changes that need to be made the commissioner would be in a position to make those recommendations at an earlier date. We believe that's more than sufficient time to assess whether the early stage reforms have been delivered and whether the government commitments are translating into real action on the ground for Australian Defence Force veterans and their families.

We think the amendment is credible. We think it strengthens transparency and reinforces accountability, and it doesn't change in any way the commissioner's independence or the commissioner's powers. We commend our amendment to the government and to the crossbench. It is a simple amendment. It's all about making sure that there is increased transparency and that a sense of urgency is instilled into the bureaucracy. As much as I had an incredibly positive working relationship with senior members of the Australian Public Service during my time in ministerial offices, there were times where I was frustrated by the lack of urgency shown by some in the department. Let's put it politely: an occasional push along wouldn't hurt Australian public servants on some of these issues.

I'm going to finish where I started, with that simple line: 'For what they have done, this we will do.' It's a contract but it's also an action statement. 'This we will do'—it requires our action. These are not pretty words on a piece of paper just to be forgotten about. The veterans covenant is the contract for men and women who have never served, to recognise that there are people who have put on that uniform, have been willing to place themselves in harm's way and sometimes get physically or mentally injured in that process. 'For what they have done, this we will do.' We honour them and we respect them by living up to our side of that contract. They have done their job. We have to do our job. It's an action statement, and it requires us to take the action required to support our veterans and their families.

I urge the minister to think seriously about the amendment put forward by the coalition in this place. To every member in this place: we have the opportunity, and it's an incredible opportunity, to stand up here and make speeches which require action to be taken which improves the lives of veterans and their families. Subject to the coalition's amendment, I commend the bills to the House and I look forward to working in the same spirit of bipartisanship I've demonstrated in these comments today with the minister when I return from the sin bin on 1 March!

See this speech in context