QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr KEOGH (Burt—Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel) (14:16): I want to thank the member for his question, and I also thank him for having me out to his electorate to meet with the local RSL and to hear what they want to do there in terms of having a hub to support the veterans in their community. They really did an excellent job of explaining the real-world impact—I met with RSL members and advocates working out there—and the support they want to be able to provide on their side of the range.

And I thank the member for passing to me as well their business case for how they want to set up that hub and have it running on an ongoing basis. We've been delivering hubs across the country, which we committed to at the 2022 and 2025 elections. They are an important part of the broader ecosystem and footprint to support our veteran communities—in particular, where we've got the highest concentration of those veteran communities around the country.

From 1 July, we will be rolling out the changes to the veterans entitlement legislation. That's going to be the biggest change in a century. We're moving from three complex systems that were interacting with each other to a single system going forward, improving the system that supports our veterans and making it quicker and easier for their claims to be processed.

Also, importantly, we'll be implementing another recommendation of the royal commission, from 1 July, when we stand up the new veteran and family wellbeing agency. It is going to co-ordinate across those veterans' and families' hubs that we already have up and running, providing an on-the-ground footprint. It will provide a national service online and by phone to help veterans navigate the systems of support in the broader wellbeing areas.

It is incredibly important work. We are working through setting that up and the other services that will be provided through that agency and funded by that agency. It's important we get that right moving forward in the near term.

That's an important piece of work both in terms of the agency itself and in terms of working with the existing hubs. As we work through that, we will then be able to better look at the wide variety of submissions that have been made to government for a further round of hubs and supports to local ex-service organisations—be them RSLs or other organisations—that want to improve how they can deliver better support to veterans and families on the ground.

We really want to support that and we want to make sure we work through that in a methodical way as we stand up these big changes that are improving support to our veteran community. I've looked at the business case that's been provided by the member. I very much appreciate it and look forward to working through it after we've stood up the wellbeing agency from 1 July this year.