MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE
Mr BURNELL (Spence) (16:24): Not too far from this chamber, just down the corridor and up a couple of flights of stairs, is my office. When you walk through the door of my office, hanging on the wall in my part of my suite is a quilt that has the history of some of my family's service, dating back more than 100 years: sacrifice in World War I, service and sacrifice in World War II, my service, my uncle's, great uncle's—and there is a lot more service that is not recognised on that quilt.
When I walk through the streets of my electorate, whether I'm in Gawler, in Elizabeth or in Salisbury, veterans are at my every turn. I am extremely fortunate to have an electorate, in the seat of Spence, that has a very high number of serving personnel and a very high number of veterans. It's no surprise, because we have RAAF Bass Edinburgh that sits at the very heart of my electorate and from there emanate stories of service on a daily basis.
Whether you sit at the St George's cafe opposite the Coles DC, just down the road from the base, over at the Elizabeth Shopping Centre, or in the local boozer at the Gawler RSL, you're never too far away from a conversation about someone's service. So, when I come to this place, people's service is always front of mind. I remember that, when I was elected to this place, the royal commission was underway.
Nick Kaldas put a challenge to each and every single one of us in this place—that we must do better—because for more than three decades we haven't delivered the level of service that our veterans have expected. Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, the Department of Veterans' Affairs was failing veterans abhorrently. When I look at the MPI statement—'The government's neglect of veterans and their needs'—I go straight to the fact that, when we came to office here, the first order of business was to put all of our resources into dealing with the backlog of claims.
Now, I'm not apportioning blame to either side of the chamber in this debate regarding that backlog. It was allowed to fester for far too long. The veterans deserved better.
And so we skilled up and we delivered a much bigger workforce to work through that list of claims that was frustrating not just veterans but also their families. That's not neglect. That's meeting people where they're at and answering their call.
That's what we did. In the lead-up to my election, I stood with the member for Blair as the shadow minister for veterans' affairs, and we announced that we would be investing in a veterans and family wellbeing hub in my electorate, and I'm proud to say that, in a week and a half's time, we will celebrate the one-year anniversary of that being delivered. The best thing about that veterans and wellbeing hub is that it was designed by the people and for the people.
It is so, so successful. We have people walking through those doors every single day. I met up with one of my ESO leaders just yesterday in the Speaker's Courtyard to talk about how successful the veterans and family wellbeing hub has been for our community.
That's not neglect. This government has been doing everything it can to better help our veterans and thank them for their service. I want to provide some content and detail to people out there that want to be engaged in this debate, shape the consultation feedback process to the minister and provide constructive feedback.
You can do that via the DVA consultation hub and you can do that via the direct feedback form at dva.gov.au. Be involved in the discussion and help shape a better system to honour your service.