Defence Legislation Amendment (RCDVS Implementation and Related Measures No. 2) Bill 2026

Mr KENNEDY (Cook) (10:58): This government is failing veterans. This budget lacks empathy, human decency and emotion for what veterans have put their bodies, their minds and their families through. It lacks any respect for the fact that these men and women have risked their lives for our country.

It's punishing them. It's punishing people who've laid down everything for things we wake up and take for granted every day. I'd like to tell a few stories about veterans from my subbranches in my electorate.

Cook is right near the Holsworthy army base. We have a number of veterans who have served and those who continue to serve living in my electorate. I'd like to tell a few stories about some folks at the Cronulla RSL Sub-Branch.

Cory, an Iraq and East Timor veteran, served this country and had 12 service related injuries. Can you guess how long it took Cory to have his injuries accepted? Eight years—eight years of forms, reports, appointments, assessments, delays and uncertainty.

Cory, as I mentioned, is president of the Cronulla RSL Sub-Branch. I recently heard from him, along with fellow board members Greg Crumblin and Paul Zaat, about the serious concerns they hold for veterans in my local community and right across the country. Collectively, these three men have dedicated more than 70 years of voluntary service to supporting veterans.

These three men have fought across Vietnam, Iraq and East Timor, each of them returning with injuries—Agent Orange and cancer; PTSD and physical impairments. These are the consequences of serving and giving your mind and body for your country. They still speak about the pride they have and the pride those who served have.

They also spoke about what happens when the uniform comes off, you come out of battle and you enter the bureaucracy. Cory told me that veterans are now waiting more than 400 days for their claims to be processed. That's more than 400 days that a veteran is out there with uncertainty, wondering, 'Am I going to get covered?' These are men and women often living with fragile mental conditions.

No-one should be waiting 400 days. It's just not good enough. Now there's a $5,000 treatment cap.

How heartless is this? For the Albanese government this is just another budget line—a simple hit and run, an easy target. For a veteran it's an endless stream of GP reports.

It's reassessments, delays, out-of-pocket bills and another battle for care. It's uncertainty. It's many veterans wondering how they're going to get on with their life, wondering how they're going to pick up the pieces and even wondering whether they can get on with their life.

Unfortunately, we do have veteran suicides in this country. When we're giving people 400 days of uncertainty before they find out what's happening, when we're giving them a $5,000 cap, how petty can we be? A government that's raising almost $80 billion in extra revenue is taking away from people who've survived, often by the skin of their teeth, and who are now lame, injured and broken in our society.

We're capping what we're giving them. It makes me sick. It lacks dignity, it lacks compassion and it lacks human decency.

How can the Albanese government look at the findings of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide and allow a policy that caps services at 5,000 bucks and restricts care needed by these veterans? Psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors and mental health professionals aren't optional extras. Sometimes these are the difference between someone living or taking their own life.

We go to morning teas and breakfasts and hear about all the funding for headspace. Yet, at the very moment the country should be removing barriers to mental health support, we're taking that support away from veterans. This is the opposite of what the royal commission should have taught this government.

I'd like to read a letter and some words that Cory Rinaldi, president of Cronulla RSL sub-branch, wrote. Cory wrote: Every veteran signs a contract knowing that one day they may be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. They willingly place themselves in harm's way, prepared to give their life in service to their country and in defence of others.

They do so without hesitation, trusting that their nation will stand by them in return. That trust must never be broken. When a veteran comes home carrying the physical and psychological scars of service, our responsibility does not end.

In many ways, it is only beginning. We owe them more than words of gratitude and ceremonial tributes. We owe them a lifetime commitment—a commitment to provide the care, support and dignity they have earned through their sacrifice.

The government and the Australian people have a moral obligation to stand beside every veteran for the rest of their life, just as they stood ready to stand for us. No veteran should ever have to fight for the support they were promised after already fighting for their country. If we are willing to ask men and women to risk everything for Australia, then we must be willing to give them everything they need when they return.

Anything less is a failure to honour the sacrifice they made on our behalf. I'd ask this government to listen to Cory's words and, more than listening to his words, to think about the millions of veterans out there and the precarious situations some of them find themselves in. They're broken and bruised, and we're talking about a $5,000 cap?

We've announced it and passed it in a budget, and now we're doing the consultation. How backwards is that? We're raising revenue and giving billions of dollars to hydrogen and billions of dollars to billionaires.

We're giving $15 billion to the NRF. We're paying $20 million to tell people to pump up their tyres and use less fuel, yet we can't find the $750 million to cover these veterans' health bills. What kind of message are we sending those who want to sign up to protect this country?

We're already struggling with recruitment to our armed services. This is a slap in the face to all those who have served, do serve or are thinking about serving. I also want to share Paul's story with the House.

In May 2016, after suffering a serious mental breakdown, he was forced to retire from work and sell his business. He approached the Vietnam Veterans Association for help, and an application was made for a gold card. He was sent to a DVA doctor—mlcoa in Sydney—but, after 12 months of delays, his claim was rejected.

The rejection triggered another breakdown. Paul was left in such distress he threatened to take his own life, and only then did the DVA arrange for a psychologist to call him every two days. His case went to the Veterans' Review Board, where he had to fight for the recognition against military and civilian lawyers, a process that caused him enormous distress.

Eventually, DVA accepted all of his conditions. In September 2017, he became TPI and received a gold card with 17 months of back pay. For those 17 months, he had no income.

Luckily, he had a home which he could borrow against, but for those 17 months he had to borrow against his home and he was under constant psychiatric treatment, with no promise that it would ever be reimbursed. This isn't how a grateful country should treat a veteran. It's not support; it's a system that forces hurt and broken people to break before it finally believes them.

Cory, Greg and Paul also spoke about the human cost. They've told me about family breakdowns caused by the stress and claims process and about relationships buckling under years of uncertainty, financial pressure and untreated trauma. The royal commission itself stated: Between 1997 and 2021, there were 1,677 confirmed suicides by serving and ex-serving members.

That's 20 times more than the number of people that were killed in combat. We have 20 times more people killing themselves than died in combat, and now we're capping their claims at 5,000 bucks. It's disgusting.

The report went on to say: We believe the actual number of preventable deaths by suicide to be higher than 3,000. That would be more than 40 times those killed in combat. Look what we're spending in our defence department for those in combat now: $50 billion— A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 11:08 to 11:22 Mr KENNEDY: The Cronulla RSL sub-branch has told me about the war widows left to figure out life after service, grieve, and then deal with this bureaucracy all at once.

They've told me about servicemen carrying mental scars as they try to rebuild their identity. Men and women trying to find purpose again, to piece together what's left of their lives when the uniform comes off. They've told me about veterans living out in the bush, isolated from support, veterans sleeping rough, veterans who served this country who have now been abandoned by it and abandoned by the Labor Albanese government.

It's shameful. How can the Albanese government look these men and women in the face and say this system is working? How can a government ask Australians to serve and then leave them short, capping what they'll reimburse them for at 5,000 bucks a year?

It's pathetic. Cory's story should shame this government. A veteran should not have to wait eight years for 12 injuries to be accepted.

A veteran should not have to wait more than 400 days for a claim to be processed. A veteran should not be forced through repeated assessments just to keep receiving care. A veteran should not be paying out of pocket while waiting for a government approval.

This $5,000 cap is not just an administrative threshold; it becomes a symbol of a system that places budgets before dignity, that places process before people and suspicion before respect. This isn't charity. It's not special treatment; it's a debt of honour that we owe these veterans.

When Australians sign up to serve, they accept obligations most of us will never have to face and will never have to think about. They accept hardship, risk and sacrifice and they accept doing things we would not even dream about. They accept a chance they might not come home, they might not see their kids, their sons and daughters, their wives and husbands or their parents.

This Albanese government must accept its obligation in return, must explain why veterans are being pushed through repeated reassessments, must explain why veterans are paying out-of-pocket costs for 400 days while waiting for approval and must explain why doctors are being driven away from DVA work. For me, this is the most egregious one: Labor must explain why it is creating $5,000 cap on what these men and women deserve.

Now, I don't want to keep political point scoring on this issue. I want the government to backflip. They've just done it on parts of their tax and budget reform.

It's not too late to make this right. But if they don't make this right, I will keep on this issue for the next two years until we get change. Whether that's getting this government to backflip or whether it's throwing them out, it's not something I will drop.

This has to change. I don't want to continue with political point scoring. I want this to flip.

If the members across here today and the members watching in their offices right now can take this back to their party room: we want to stop. Let's make this right. If this was overlooked or administrative, great; I will personally shut up about it.

But let's fix this for the veterans. They deserve it. This is not how a grateful country should treat those who've served it.

For a veteran with a physical injury, delay can mean more than pain; it means less mobility, less work, less independence, and sometimes I hear them say to me it makes them feel less human. For a veteran with PTSD, delay can mean sleepless nights, anger, isolation, shame. It can fracture their relationships, fracture their sense of self.

We don't live through that. Most of us watching at home will never live through what these men and women suffer. Just the uncertainty right now of passing a $5,000 cap in consulting afterwards is creating anxiety.

We heard about up to 3,000 suicides in this population. Why are we doing this? Let's fix it.

Let's act now. Let's say 'we got it wrong', fix it and make it right. Veterans need the peace of knowing that, when they reach out for treatment, the first response from their country will not be to ask whether they've crossed a spending threshold.

It's time to make this right for veterans all around Australia, and I stand with you.