Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Defence Personnel) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. Can the minister confirm that the backlog of 60,000 unprocessed compensation claims for our veterans is a national disgrace, as he told the media on Saturday?

Andrew Gee (Calare, National Party, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. I stand by everything that I said, and I stand by everything that I did. I did so on Saturday, and I stand by it in this House today. Clearing that backlog of claims needs to be a national imperative, and it should be a bipartisan imperative. That's why we have secured $96 million in this budget and in the budget papers and also the contingency to clear that backlog of claims. Do you know why I'm so passionate about it, Mr Speaker? Because we owe it to the ADF personnel, we owe it to veterans and we owe it to their families. This backlog has been building up for years, but we are doing something about it. You will see funding in that budget to reduce those claims in many different ways, including more staff to get the claims processing system going, to get it fixed and to get it moving. I don't apologise for it now and I never will.