Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel. Minister, the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide made 122 recommendations. Not one of them—not one—called for this cruel, unjust cap on veterans' allied health care. Minister, who brought forward Labor's plan to cut three quarters of a billion dollars from veterans' allied health support?

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

I thank the member for his question. The Albanese government is entirely committed to making sure that we're implementing the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide. That's why we acted so swiftly, after that report was handed down in September of 2024, to provide the government's response in December of 2024. That's why we acted quickly to legislate the establishment of the Defence and Veterans' Service Commission, which is what the royal commission itself said was the most important recommendation that it made, and it was up and running by September of last year. We continue to do the work of implementing the royal commission's recommendations.

One of the things that this measure delivers on is increasing the fees that are going to be paid to allied health service professionals across Australia, recognising the real need that has been spoken about for so long by those providers and by the veteran community. That was something that was highlighted in recommendation 71, and that's what we are about delivering by improving access for our veteran community.