Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week we noted the fourth anniversary of the commencement of the war in Iraq. Last month, we remembered the bombing of Darwin 65 years ago during the Second World War. Next month, on Anzac Day, we will honour the efforts of all our service men and women, with particular reference to those who served in the First World War.

During any year, we also remember tragedies involving our service personnel that happened away from conflict zones and in times of peace. On 10 February this year, we noted the 43rd anniversary of the collision of the HMAS Melbourne and the HMAS Voyager, which killed 82 naval personnel and injured hundreds more. Just yesterday, the family of Trooper Joshua Porter attended his funeral. His death was as a result of the crash of an army helicopter during exercises in Fiji, an incident that also claimed the life of Captain Mark Bingley.

Throughout our nation’s relatively short history, our defence forces have always been engaged in wars, conflicts or manoeuvres that put them at risk. Many service personnel have died and many more have suffered physical or mental injuries that have had both immediate and enduring effects on their quality of life and often on their families. We call those people who have served in our defence forces ‘veterans’, and that is a title that brings with it the connotation of effort and survival. We have got better at acknowledging not just the physical but also the psychological and social impacts on veterans and service personnel who have, voluntarily or compulsorily, served in our defence forces.

I am sure that every senator’s office has at some time been approached by a veteran, their family or a veterans organisation for assistance—often in dealing with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. As the daughter of a veteran, I am well aware of the many services that are funded by the DVA and provided to our veterans who need and deserve those services. As well as the medical and rehabilitation services provided through the DVA, some veterans and their families find pastoral care to be of much support and comfort. I am also sure that every senator is receiving emails and letters from veterans and their advocates expressing concerns about funding and retention of chaplaincy services for veterans in our hospitals.

Labor have asked questions at Senate estimates about the review currently being conducted by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs into the provision of chaplaincy services to veterans at the Repatriation General Hospital at Daw Park in Adelaide—the Repat, as it is known. In particular, we have asked whether or not the government can guarantee that funding for chaplaincy services will not be reduced as a result of the review. We have also asked why the review panel does not include representatives of the churches. In particular, why was the Heads of Christian Churches Chaplaincy Advisory Committee not part of the review panel?

The committee itself sought to be involved but its request has not been agreed to by the minister. One would have thought that the review panel should include representatives of the organisations that actually work on a daily basis with veterans and their families in delivery of chaplaincy services, but this is apparently not the view of the minister. Answers given to Labor’s questions at estimates have so far not been satisfactory to either the opposition or veterans groups. We are hopeful that the result of the current review will be satisfactory to the veterans community. Labor will continue to monitor the process carefully through Senate estimates questions and through our ongoing contact with veterans and their advocates.

Last week, together with the shadow minister for veteran’s affairs, Mr Alan Griffin, I met with the coordinating chaplain from the Pastoral Care Unit at the Repatriation Hospital, Reverend Bruce Stocks. Also in attendance were veterans representatives, who are extremely anxious that chaplaincy services continue to be provided by people who understand what veterans need and in a context that veterans are comfortable with. To ensure this happens, and that adequate ongoing funding is made available, veterans groups say that the DVA must continue to be responsible for funding and for ensuring that services are targeted to veterans even if provision of actual services is in a state owned or controlled hospital which also has non-veteran patients in need of pastoral care.

As the veterans representatives said at the meeting last week, civilians just do not understand the special needs of veterans and veterans families whose lives have been disrupted by physical and/or emotional damage resulting from service in our defence forces. It is always confronting for civilians like me to hear, as I did at the meeting last week, men and women who served in World War II, and who are now approaching 90 years of age, who can still describe what they saw and felt in a battle or conflict more than 60 years ago as if it happened to them only yesterday. It is only in the last few years that some of our surviving World War II veterans have been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder which they have been suffering, though it usually remained nameless, for sometimes 60 years or more. And, of course, as a nation we have belatedly come to acknowledge, and are still struggling to adequately deal with, the impact of the Vietnam conflict on veterans and their families.

While the Pastoral Care Unit at the Repat serves both veteran and non-veteran patients, the majority of the unit’s chaplains’ and volunteers’ time—on average 70 per cent of the Pastoral Care Unit’s time during the last three years—has been spent with veterans. While the number of veteran admissions to the hospital has declined by approximately 20 per cent over the past 10 years, veterans still account for 41 per cent of occupied bed days at the Repat and veterans typically have longer periods of admission. In the last six months of 2006, the Pastoral Care Unit provided more than 2,800 pastoral and counselling services to veterans. Chaplains from the unit also conduct funerals for veterans and memorial services for battalion commemorations and on days of note such as Anzac Day and Remembrance Day. Each Sunday the Repat chaplains take it in turns to perform a service which is broadcast from the Repat’s beautiful non-denominational chapel to patients in the hospital via bedside broadcast.

The Pastoral Care Unit estimates that the cost of continuing to provide the services at the current level will be in the order of $277,000 in 2008. The unit has proposed that the federal government meet a proportion of that cost—approximately 70 per cent—based on the proportion of services provided to veterans. It is a small amount in the scheme of things and one is ever hopeful—but far from certain—that this government will do the right thing by our veterans and their families. I am also aware of other arguments that are brought into this debate, which I think are often to deflect attention from the core issue: government funding of chaplaincy services and the retention of responsibility for veterans services in the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and under the auspices of the federal government.

Some of those other issues include whether it is the state or federal government that should be responsible for such services in state administered hospitals; there is an element of the federal government’s favoured blame game in this aspect of the argument. There is also the argument as to whether or not there is any medical evidence that spiritual intervention assists with physical recovery. An interesting diversionary tactic that emerged in the debate attempts to portray the various church denominations as competitors against each other to provide these services. With regard to this last point, it is worth recalling the words of one of the veterans with whom I met last week. He said that when you are about to go into a battle that you might not come out of, you will kneel down in front of any padre who puts their hand up to give a blessing, regardless of which denomination they are.

In conclusion, I would like to encourage the government to respond appropriately to the current review that is being undertaken, and I look forward to the report of that review. I would also like to acknowledge while I have the opportunity the excellent work of the chaplains and volunteers who continue to provide much needed care to the patients at the Repatriation General Hospital in Daw Park.