MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (16:55): Thanks, Senator Lambie, for bringing this motion and telling it again like it is. I know it's hard. I'm really grateful you've been able to tell it like it is, Jacqui.
This is about life-saving care. Allied health is not some abstract thing. I've heard from veterans about what it means to them.
It means being able to go to the physiotherapist so you can get the chronic pain dealt with, so you can play with your kids in the backyard. It means being able to go the psychologist, and not just once or twice but maybe once a week, so you can get out of bed and engage in life. It's about being able to go to the occupational therapist, so you can stay at work and contribute and look after your family.
That's what we're talking about here when we talk about allied health. As to a $5,000 cap: if you really need the care, you could churn through that in a matter of months. And what do you do for the rest of the year?
You spend your time begging Veterans' Affairs, through some as-yet-unplanned bureaucracy, to see if they'll let you go to the physiotherapist; to see if they'll let you go to your psychologist. Who would come up with this? We asked questions about it in estimates: 'Who did you talk with?
Who did you consult? How would this work?' There were no answers at all. It's a thought bubble designed to reap three-quarters of a billion dollars in savings out of the veteran community.
The cap threatens life-saving care. Veterans aren't mugs, and they can see that a cut is a cut. They can read the budget like I can read the budget, and they can see the three-quarters of a billion dollars that this miserable government wants to take out of their care.
The government says only one in 10 veterans will be impacted, but that's 10 per cent of all veterans. And they are the most vulnerable. They are the most in need.
They are the most complex cases. They're the very people that we need to keep as far away as possible from the Veterans' Affairs bureaucracy and as close as possible to care. And this policy does the exact opposite.
It takes them away from their physio, it takes them away from their psychology, and it feeds them into the mincing machine that is Veterans' Affairs bureaucracy. Who would come up with that! They now claim they're 'consulting' about it.
They're consulting on a policy that they've already put in the budget. That does not pass the pub test. That doesn't pass the kindergarten test.
It sure as hell doesn't pass the test of veterans, who, as I said before, are not bloody mugs. This isn't consulting. This is the same as we saw with the defence estate sell-off.
They named the 70-odd properties they were going to sell. They told us about them. They published them in a list.
And then they consulted on them. What is wrong with this government? And do you know what?
They've now come out and done the exact same thing they did with NDIS. They've come out here and said it's all about dodgy providers. They've said, 'Oh, there are people milking the system.
It's about dodgy providers.' They ran it in the media. To those in the media listening: we watched you recycle these stories from the government again. We watched you, and veterans watched you.
They're on to you as well, because, when you run those stories for Labor, you give them cover to take away the benefits from veterans, just like you gave them cover to take away help for those who need it from the NDIS. This government is using the media like a hammer to smash the victims of the system, not the dodgy providers. I can tell you this: every veteran I've spoken to would join you in a heartbeat to go after a dodgy provider.
We'd join you in a heartbeat to go after a dodgy provider. But this isn't designed to go after dodgy providers; this is designed to go after veterans, punishing them for service. Let's also remember that the government that's taking three-quarters of a billion dollars off veterans care is the same government that's actually handing $5 billion to Donald Trump for a bunch of nuclear submarines we'll never get.
It's the same government that is spending hundreds of millions of dollars building houses for US troops in Perth. Why are Australian veterans at the back of the queue? Why is it always the same—money for war, money for weapons, money for Trump but never money to help the veterans who actually went and did service for us?
You'll send a veteran to Iraq to fight in a war, but when they come back here and they need physiotherapy, they need psych treatment, you say: 'I'm sorry; I haven't got any money. I've given it to Donald.' Reverse this. Scrap the cap.
Until you do, we'll keep coming back until it happens.