Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs. The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide highlighted the tragic human cost of our country failing to properly care for our ADF personnel, veterans and their families. Veterans' and families' wellbeing hubs are a step in setting things right. We have thousands of veterans in the Calare electorate, but there are no hubs in the Central West of New South Wales. The Bathurst and Orange RSL sub-branches want to establish a hub in Bathurst and Orange, with outreach hubs in smaller communities. Will you meet with our local veterans and consider this proposal?

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Link to 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.

Zhi Soon (Banks, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. What preparations are being made for the Economic Reform Roundtable next month? How will the government's efforts help tackle the big challenges in our economy?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the outstanding new member for Banks for his question. I congratulate him on his victory and on his first speech as well.

This week we got a really important reminder in the inflation numbers of the progress that Australians have made together over the course of the last three years or so. What is especially heartening is that, at the same time as we have worked to get inflation down to around a third of what we inherited, it has meant that we've got real wages growing again and living standards growing again. We've kept unemployment low, we've delivered a couple of surpluses and we got the Liberal debt down. That is all important and meaningful progress.

No major advanced economy has achieved what Australia has—inflation in the low twos, unemployment in the low fours, three years of continuous economic growth—but we do know that there is more work to do, because the global environment is uncertain, because growth is not what we want it to be in our economy. We've got persistent structural issues in our economy and we know that people are still under pressure. That's why the primary focus of this government in the first parliamentary fortnight of the new government has been to deliver the cost-of-living relief that we promised at the election—to roll that out. It's also why we've got a big economic agenda already when it comes to skills and energy, housing and competition policy, and in other areas.

It's also in these particularly persistent structural issues in our economy, which is why we will be convening the Economic Reform Roundtable next month here in Canberra. This is all about building consensus around next steps and how we deal with these big economic challenges. We've been very grateful for the engagement that we've already seen from right around the country. I thank and pay tribute to the ministers here for the work that they're doing in engaging with stakeholders in their own portfolios. There has been a lot of engagement already. It will be a busy three days, and in the next day or so I will be releasing the agenda for those three days of the Economic Reform Roundtable.

I want to make it clear that we do not expect there to be a unanimous view from everyone who comes to the roundtable—of course not! It would be pointless if that were the case. And we don't expect to solve every single problem in our economy in three days—some of these problems have been building for three decades.

But we do expect the roundtable to help set some general directions and to pitch up specific ideas. There will be more work for the government to do after the roundtable and in advance of the next budget.

We have made good progress together in our economy as Australians. We do have a big agenda we're rolling out. This government figures the best way to work out the next steps is to do that together, and that's what the reform roundtable is all about.