David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Greens to indicate we will be supporting this motion. I want to make it clear that the timely medical care and income support veterans need but also the support families need to see that their loved one who is a veteran is getting the health care they need is a core part of the work my office does. I can't tell you how many veterans not just in New South Wales but across the country who are having enormous difficulty just getting to see a GP let alone specialist care contact my office. Indeed, the lack of psychiatric care is not only a crisis situation for veterans; it's a crisis situation for so many people across the country.

But one of the things that keeps coming up when we speak with veterans and when we speak with health providers in in this space is the differential between what DVA pays and what the NDIS pays for the same service. If you come in under the NDIS, the health provider—the GP, physiotherapist or psychiatrist—gets a higher rate for providing services under the NDIS than they do for providing services to veterans. What that means is that veterans go to the back of the queue, if they can even get into the queue. This has been a long-running problem for veterans across the country. We hear it.

I want to give a shout-out to my team who provide that support to the veterans who contact our office. I also want to give a shout-out to the veterans organisations and the families of veterans—that support network that has been wrapped around veterans because they need it just to navigate the system. That is a problem with the system. If you need that kind of support network, if you need the support of your partner, your kids, your parents or advocacy networks just to navigate the system, that shows there's a problem with the system.

But one of the core things the government could do—and I know it's a budget cost—and must do is at least make an equivalence between the rates that are paid to medical providers under the NDIS and the rates that are paid to medical providers when they are helping veterans. That is a matter of urgency. That in and of itself could make a significant difference, and we support it.

I appreciate the lived experience of Senator Lambie and particularly the experience she has told us over the last few weeks and months about veterans not having access to psychiatric beds and psychiatric care. We know that one of the risks of serving can be significant psychological trauma—PTSD and other trauma. If we are going to ask veterans to serve knowing that's a likely risk of service, there must be a commitment to providing the health supports they need when they are in service and when they end service. That should be a non-negotiable. If we ask people to do this work and know that risk is in place, the services need to be there and veterans need to know that those services are there.

When it comes to (f)—calling on the government to immediately implement the royal commission's recommendations, recognising that further delay is placing veterans' lives at risk—we absolutely support the intent of that. My only minor quibble is that I actually don't think we can 'immediately' implement all of them, because they require co-design with veterans, and they require some time. I think that is important. In this space, we've seen the government previously, at the end of the last parliament, rush forward ahead of that co-design. That creates suspicion, and it creates anxiety. Absolutely the recommendations need to be implemented. They need to be implemented urgently. But they need to be implemented with the veterans' community. They need to be implemented with the advice from those support organisations, and they do need to be implemented urgently.

I want to thank Senator Lambie for bringing this motion and I want to indicate our party's support for the care that veterans need. And I stress again: if nothing else comes from this motion but an urgency in the government to ensure that the same rates are paid to veterans as are paid under the NDIS, that will be a win for veterans.