Those opposite had a deliberate policy—a budget strategy—of deliberately having people wait and languish on the waiting list to have their veterans assessed. We had to put on extra staff into Veterans' Affairs, at a cost of billions of dollars, to actually get people to process veterans claims so they could get access to their basic entitlements. That is what happened under that government. You deliberately had people languishing on the waiting list, trying to get actually assessed. That is what happened under you.

We have increased funding into Veterans' Affairs by $16 billion. We now have veterans, today, who were sitting and waiting for years to have their claim assessed, now being able to access those entitlements. We are proud of the work the minister did to actually get that happening. You should be ashamed of yourselves, frankly, for having let thousands and thousands of veterans down by not actually having their claims assessed—years waiting on the list before they could actually get any entitlements at all. That's what happened, and it was a deliberate budget strategy on behalf of those opposite to have those people waiting for that length of time for their entitlements. The veteran community knows that. They know, absolutely, that they are now seeing claims processed much faster and that more people are getting access to the entitlements to which they were entitled. That is really what had happened under the previous government.

Obviously, we understand that there has been concern expressed by the veteran community around the issue of the $5,000 threshold. We understand that. We've consulted. We've listened to people, and we've now made the statement today that we are withdrawing that threshold. But let's look at the issue that we're trying to address here. It's that veterans are struggling to get access to the allied health professionals that they need because the rates of pay for the allied health professionals have not been keeping up. There are many allied health professionals across the community who are not servicing veterans today. We can't get access to those allied health services in the first place.

What we've been trying to do through the changes is increase the fees that the government pays for allied health professionals to make sure that they actually are servicing our veteran community and make sure that they are actually available for our veterans as part of their assessment package. That's what we've been trying to do and the minister is trying to do, and I don't think any of us make any apologies for trying to make sure that our veterans actually have access not only to their pensions—which they didn't have under the previous government, because they had a deliberate budget strategy to make sure that that didn't occur. There were thousands and thousands of people waiting for their claims to be assessed, languishing on the waiting list, having no idea whether they would get that through or not. I don't think that we should have lectures from those opposite that somehow or other that they actually had supported veterans through that period. There were thousands of people languishing on the waiting list.

We have a deep and abiding respect for our veterans. There are members on both sides of this chamber who have served in the ADF. I don't need to have threats from you, those opposite. I don't need to have threats from those men opposite saying, 'I'll come into your electorate and I'll show you.' I don't need blokes saying that to me. I'm very happy. I talk to my RSL. I go to the RSL all the time. I don't need threats. I don't need men threatening me in this chamber saying, 'I'll march down to your electorate, and we'll tell you.' That's what you've been doing. Oh, here's a numpty.