QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr KEOGH (Burt—Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel) (14:45): I thank the member for his question and I thank those veterans for meeting with me yesterday afternoon. I acknowledge that I got it wrong in not agreeing to meet with them last week when that initial request came in. I own that.

I met with them and I heard them last night. When I came into that room and I met with them and they were sitting down, I said, 'Relax' and 'I want to hear what you want to tell me.' I was very clear about listening to them. I don't agree with the characterisation that you have just outlined.

I shook the hands of those people who attended that meeting as we finished that meeting, to be clear, and I was grateful for the information that they imparted to me, given the diverse range of experience that they had both medically and as veterans. I take all of that feedback on board, as we will take on the feedback as part of our consultation process in making sure that this change to allied health services, which enables better payment and higher payments to providers so that there's better access for veterans, operates with no gap in care.

As I said to them last night and as I've said to every veteran group that I've met with after this announcement, it has always been the government's intention to make sure there is no gap in service provision where it's clinically required, and we want to make sure that we get that right. I also said to them—and I've said this many times—that I understand there is a distrust of the DVA's capacity to deliver that.

I get that. I stood at this dispatch box in one of the first speeches I gave as minister to apologise for the failures of DVA in the past, and we've been fixing that and making that better. We are not trying to make things worse.

We want to make sure that, with a different approach but with no gap in service provision, we deliver a change that makes allied healthcare access easier for veterans. I was very happy to hear their thoughts on that, and we ask all veterans and service providers to engage in that consultation process to make sure that we get it right and to improve that standard of care for our veterans.

The SPEAKER: Member for Riverina on a point of order? Mr McCormack: I seek leave to table a transcript of a press conference this morning with the version of events from the veterans who outlined what they felt was disrespect in that meeting with the minister. Leave granted.