Defence Portfolio
Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (17:50): I have every respect for those members opposite—the member for Sturt, the member for Gilmore, the member for Swan and the member for Spence, who is actually a veteran of three years as Australian Army reservist, Puckapunyal, and I certainly thank you for your service, Member for Spence. But this is about consideration in detail for the Defence portfolio.
The member for Sturt didn't ask a question, but, if she had, there's no minister here to answer any such questions. I appreciate that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence is not in the parliament today, but the Minister for Veterans' Affairs certainly is and so is the Minister for Defence Industry. Why are they not in this chamber, respecting the process and the protocols long held and answering questions that the opposition rightly asks?
And there are a lot of questions to be asked in the Defence portfolio in the veterans' affairs space. Our veterans at the moment have white hot anger. They have white-hot anger about the cap on allied health services—a $5,000 cap on those services which were once uncapped.
The veterans are going to be consulted, or so the government tells us. They're going to be asked about what they feel and the changes that they might think are necessary before the allied health cap comes into place on 1 July 2027. But we know that this government whitewashes everyone who questions the veracity of its policies, we know that this was a budget of broken promises and we know that the veterans who do put forward quite reasonable suggestions as to what changes should be made won't be listened to, because that is the Labor way.
That's Labor's view of consultation, but it's far short of what is needed. At the moment, these services which provide essential health care for our veterans, for those men and women who gave their all, who put their lives and bodies on the line for our nation, for our people, so that we could be safe and secure and protected and sleep at night—when they hang their military uniform up, when it comes time to have their backs, what does the government do?
It ignores them. It turns its back on those who protected us, those who served us, those to whom we should say, 'Thank you for your service' but instead say, 'We're putting a cap on your allied health services.' What will the government do about this? I genuinely ask the minister in absentia.
Are you going to legitimately and rightly do a backflip on this particular question as you have done with the Invictus Games funding, as you have done with the medallic recognition late last year—the moratorium that you and your department and your government placed on this. The veterans' affairs minister also should do a backflip as he did with Doug and Kaye Baird's travel entitlements—$3,000.
I mean, it's loose change when it comes to the multibillion dollar veterans spend—a multibillion dollar veterans spend which is justified. But this is not justified. This $748 million saving is cruel.
It's mean spirited and it's wrong. Is the minister going to review his decision to cut veterans' affairs departmental staff by 111? We know that when there are public servants shed, they are the public servants we should have on the frontline taking calls, taking inquiries and doing the right thing by our veterans who did the right thing by us.
Unfortunately, our veterans are being ignored. Unfortunately, those veterans, who now want to see a psychologist and who now need the services that were once uncapped, are now going to be capped at $5,000 per year. It's simply not good enough, Minister, and what, Minister, are you doing to rectify this error?
What, Minister, are you doing to rectify taking away more than 100 public service jobs in the Department of Veterans' Affairs? You have plenty to say about it in question time. You have plenty to say about it elsewhere.
Why aren't you here, Minister to answer the coalition's very justified questions on behalf of the veterans of Australia, who feel very hurt and very betrayed right now.