Anne Urquhart (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel. How is the Albanese government delivering support for veterans to access free advocacy services, and why is this so important?

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

I thank the member for Braddon for her question. I've had the great opportunity of visiting many veteran services in her electorate with her—including the Burnie hub, which we were able to open during the last term of the Albanese government. The Albanese government, from day one, has been focused on delivery for our veteran community. Our significant investments in the Department of Veterans' Affairs have improved claim processing. We are now determining more claims than ever, and we're improving support reaching our veterans and the families of veterans.

But we've seen an increase in unscrupulous commercial veteran advocates taking advantage of our veterans. We heard in a recent Senate inquiry the urgent need to increase the capacity and the capability of 'free' to the veteran advocacy services. In some cases, we saw commercial advocates had been charging commissions as high as 29 per cent of a veteran's statutory compensation payment or charging contract break fees in excess of $27,000.

Of course, that means we, as a government, are taking action. We are investing more than $203 million to improve DVA's integrity measures and to expand the support for free-to-use advocacy services for veterans and the families of veterans. This will ensure that veterans and their families receive safe, high-quality services and that taxpayer dollars are going towards the support of veteran wellbeing, rather than looking after those that are trying to take advantage of our veterans. We've doubled the funding for the Building Excellence in Support and Training Grants Program, the BEST grants. These support ex-service organisations in providing free-to-use advocacy services for our veterans. We're also providing greater funding security for those ex-service organisations so that they can employ and provide training to their advocates, who are free to use for a veteran, and to support them by making these grants, instead of just for one year, for three years.

These changes address recommendation 99 of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. This will mean that veterans can better access free-to-use advocates to assist them with making their claims with DVA. This is all part of how the Albanese government is committed to delivering the care, services and supports that our veterans community not only needs but deserves. It stands in stark contrast to the division that we see from the Liberals and the Nationals opposite.