ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT - BILLS - VETERANS' AFFAIRS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (Miscellaneous Measures No. 2) BILL 2023 - Second Reading

It took the Assistant Minister for Veterans' Affairs just 20 seconds to start criticising the previous government, but I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to do something positive. I'm going to actually thank him. I thank him for coming to Wagga Wagga recently—on Wednesday 12 April—to hear from the residents who live in and around the Kapooka Army base and the Royal Australian Air Force base at Forest Hill about the PFAS, the per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, contamination issues there. I appreciate very much that in recent days an agreement was reached for a class action in relation to PFAS. I appreciate that those issues are ongoing. I am a former veterans affairs minister. In fact, I was the 43rd of 46. There have been a lot of veterans affairs ministers.

I call on the current Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the member for Burt, to do everything he can to continue the help for our veterans. I acknowledge the member for Braddon behind me for his service—seven years at Kapooka in a 20-year career with the Australian Army. I thank other members too for what they have done for our nation. We should always remember what our veterans have done and what those currently serving in uniform do for our country—not just on 25 April or on 11 November, the special days. I appreciate they're commemorative days—Anzac Day and Remembrance Day or Armistice Day. We should remember our veterans every single day because they put their lives on the line in many instances and they do need every bit of support they can get. That's why this bill—the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 2) Bill 2023—is important. Whilst it might be seen as being noncontroversial, it is otherwise essential because of the various measures outlined therein.

There are four particular and pertinent points that I will go through. Before I do that I note that the Assistant Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the member for Kingsford Smith, talked about the fact that the claim queue has gone down. I hope he's right. I earnestly hope that that is the case. I know that more staff have been placed in the Department of Veterans' Affairs to make sure that DVA has the resources and, indeed, the personnel it requires to address the backlog of claims. I earnestly hope that what he is telling the House is indeed correct, because we do need to not only address the issues that ex-service men and women have placed before us but also do it in a timely manner. It is so important.

I note that the shadow minister for veterans' affairs, the member for New England, spoke on this bill earlier today and talked about Sandakan and the commemoration that was held last weekend. Indeed, in the Wagga Wagga Victory Memorial Gardens there is a poignant memorial to the men who fell on that death march. We commemorate that, as we do commemorate many events, because Wagga Wagga is a tri-service town. We have the Army, which the member for Braddon knows all too well. We have the Air Force. We even have a Navy base, even though we're a long way from the nearest drop of seawater. Deputy Speaker Chesters, I commend your hometown too for what it does and the role it plays with the Bushmaster and the manufacturing that occurs there.

I am disappointed that the recent budget did not include Wagga Wagga, to have a wellness and wellbeing centre. I commend community-driven efforts to get Pro Patria up and off the ground. The coalition government made a promise, a pledge, that we would give $5 million for a wellbeing centre, and there were around 10 to a dozen of these wellbeing centres. Unfortunately, that pledge has not been honoured by this government and that is a pity, particularly for Wagga Wagga, which is a tri-service town.

It has many veterans who, seeing the great attractions of our city, choose to retire there after their service is completed. The Riverina electorate—that includes the Central West as well—has 3,837 veterans, including 1,576, at last count, in the Wagga Wagga local government area. That is a lot of veterans. The Pro Patria people are doing what they can to make sure that that wellbeing centre will serve the needs of our veterans, going forward. The RSL too, through LifeCare, through Charlotte Webb and others, is really making considerable ground in establishing a veterans advocacy place for Wagga Wagga. So I commend those too.

Recently I was in Cootamundra, where Jacqui Vincent OAM, the secretary, treasurer, trustee—a person you just don't say no to—and others opened a Cootamundra RSL sub-branch veterans drop-in centre in Parker Street, the main street in Cootamundra. Jacqui and her colleagues have that wonderful advocacy drop-in centre and provide the sorts of services and advice and support for veterans that you'd expect of a New South Wales RSL. President Ray James and his indefatigable wife, Pauline—both Order of Australia medallists—were at that particular event, back on 4 March and, let me tell you, it is a very good centre and was well supported on that day.

This bill aligns the entitlements of firefighters employed by the Australian Defence Force with civil firefighters in relation to oesophageal cancer, which includes reducing the qualifying period of employment for an ADF firefighter from 25 to 15 years. We know that firefighters have health complications both during and, in often cases, after their service. Indeed, the whole PFAS situation is around the use of particular substances that were used in good faith. Those people who were both using that particular substance, the firefighting foam, and, in some instances, were saved by it were unaware at the time of just how dangerous this material, substance, could be for their health in the future.

That is why Defence moved—and, I know, when I was the assistant defence minister and the veterans affairs minister, the work that I did, along with others, of course—to ensure that those people who were affected by this were being listened to. In fact, the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 1) Bill 2018 I put into this parliament because it was necessary and because it was going to provide better outcomes for those people who had donned a uniform. Whether it's the khaki, the white or the Navy blue or Air Force blue, that veteran-centric reform continues to help them today.

The second point of this particular amendment allows for payments from specified Commonwealth state territory employment programs to be exempt from veteran income means testing. This is important, and I commend the work by former coalition Prime Ministers Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison on the efforts they went to personally, and rightly and unjustifiably, to make sure that veterans had employment opportunities after their service was complete. Not everybody can be like the member for Braddon and get a parliamentary career after their service is done. I'm pleased that the member for Braddon is an earthy person who tells it like it is. We need those sorts of people in our parliament. It's based a lot on his military experience. We've got others, and I thank each and every one of them, including the member for Solomon, for bringing that good-natured but very down-to-earth practical experience they have gained from wearing the uniform and mixing with our uniformed soldiers, the best and the bravest, and bringing it into parliament to give a veteran-centric perspective on legislation. Even the shadow minister for defence—I know that what he brings to our joint party room is second to none. I thank them for that.

These employment programs, Schedule 2, ensures parity between eligible recipients under the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 with those under the updated Social Security Act 1991. The provisions ensure that when the employment secretary determines that payments of benefits from Commonwealth or state/territory employment programs are exempt from income assessment for social security purposes, that the determination also applies to recipients under the VEA and does not affect income support payments. We want those veterans to receive as much as they can receive without being impinged upon by various Treasury laws and potential amendments since their service was up. They qualified under other provisions previously.

Schedule 3 entrenches discretion to provide rent assistance beyond 26 weeks for veterans overseas unable to return due to unforeseen circumstances such as war or, indeed, something that we probably wouldn't have even thought of prior to 2020, health pandemics. It aligns the measure with the Social Security Act 1991. We want to make sure that veterans who might find themselves overseas and might be unable to return are still qualifying for all the benefits that they would otherwise qualify for. This is important because we just don't know what we don't know. We hope that the worst of COVID-19 is behind us, but there are still people dying every day, and people still should exercise all their best behaviours to make sure that they don't expose themselves to potential hazards of COVID-19. Get your jabs, do all that, particularly our veterans, some of whom have health that has perhaps not been the best. They should be getting those immunisations to protect themselves at every turn.

Schedule 4 extends assistance to grandparents caring for children of a deceased veteran. We have more than 102,000 names etched into the rolls of honour at the War Memorial just down the road from here. It's no coincidence that the front door of the War Memorial and the front door of the Australian Parliament face each other. We owe our veterans our gratitude because they went and served, many of them as volunteers. Some of them perhaps did not want to go, but they went. They served and fought, and many of them did not return. They are buried in foreign fields. Many of them did return and were worse from the effects of it. In World War I—not that there are any World War I veterans left—we lost 60,000 of our best and brightest. What a difference they could have made to our country. In the 10 years after the war we lost another 62,000 from the effects of the Great War. No war is great. The war of 1914 to 1918 was not great, though it is referred to as the Great War. Of course we want to make sure, whether it's World War II, Vietnam, Malaya, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever conflicts we have engaged in, both in decades past and in more recent times, that we provide that assistance and support to our veterans and continue to do so.

These four schedules in the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures No. 2) Bill 2023, whilst uncontroversial, are important because our veterans are important. I know that; I come from a tri-service town, I come from a garrison city, and I respect what our city does to commemorate our veterans. Moreover, I commemorate the future we are going to provide them. This legislation assists that, and I urge the government to do everything it can to at all times protect our veterans and give them the futures they deserve.