MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator CASH (Western Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (16:03): I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The serious failure of judgement demonstrated by the Minister for Veterans' Affairs in initially declining to meet veterans and bereaved family members who came to Parliament House to raise urgent concerns about their health care, and the question of whether the minister retains the confidence of the veteran community he is entrusted to serve.
Minister Keogh has sadly lost the confidence of the veterans he is supposed to support and champion on a daily basis. In their own words—this is an indictment on any minister—he has lost their trust. He has lost their respect.
On that basis alone, it is no longer tenable that Minister Keogh hold the position of Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel. Our veterans are the Australians who put on the uniform, and they put it on proudly. They are the people who serve this country.
They are the people who are prepared to put themselves in harm's way so that they can defend the freedoms that each and every one of us has on a daily basis. They should never have to fight their own government and, in particular, their own minister simply to be heard. Yet, under Minister Keogh, that is exactly what they are being forced to do.
Sadly for Minister Keogh, this is not one bad meeting, as he would like Australians to believe it was. It's not one mistake. It is now an established pattern of behaviour: make a decision detrimental to veterans and ignore the veterans' pleas.
They fall on deaf ears. Then the outrage happens. The Australian public and the veterans stand up.
They stand up to the Prime Minister and to Minister Keogh, and then they retreat. This week has been an utter disgrace in this portfolio. Veterans came to Parliament House in good faith, deeply concerned about Labor's $5,000 allied health threshold and what it could mean for them and veterans with serious health complaints and complex health needs.
We heard of suicides that have now occurred because of the stress that these veterans are under. What does the minister, who is meant to be championing them every single day, do? He refuses to meet with them.
That is just sick, quite frankly. What Minister for Veterans' Affairs refuses to meet with veterans who come here to plead with this government, 'Please don't take any further action that is going to be detrimental to our health'? He refuses to meet with them.
Only after he is actually called out by the former deputy prime minister Michael McCormack and publicly shamed does he agree to sit down with them. My God, the reports now coming out of that meeting from the veterans who attended—he walked in without shaking their hands. He sat with his arms crossed.
He rolled his eyes at the people who had served our country, who were being detrimentally impacted by so many now of Labor's changes. And then he says to them he's missing an appointment with the Governor-General. What, an appointment to go and have drinks?
You've got to be kidding me. He now says he got it wrong. Guess what, Minister Keogh?
Shame on you. Yes, you did, but this is the problem now: what's come out of the meeting? This is what the veterans are saying.
Former RAAF pilot and GP Dr Tim Nelson said that the meeting 'confirmed for us that lack of trust'. Donna Manton, a defence veteran, an advocate and a long-time Labor supporter, says she is heartsick to be calling out this government and this minister for not caring for veterans. Former Royal Australian Navy diver John Armfield said, 'I enlisted under the Navy values of courage, honour, honesty and loyalty, and yet you, Minister Keogh, have failed to display any of these values.' That is the veterans talking.
What we now have with this minister is a pattern of behaviour. Remember when he made—and this is probably one of the sickest decisions a government has ever made under a minister—the decision to remove the very small amount of funding that former prime minister Tony Abbott had given to the parents of Corporal Cameron Baird, a Victoria Cross recipient who lost his life—a few grand a year to travel around this country and raise the case for our veterans, and that minister cancelled it.
What type of a sick minister does that? This minister has lost the respect of the veterans. We've lost respect for him, and, quite frankly, he needs to go.