MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator McDONALD (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (16:30): Australia's promise is that we will look after those who serve. But that promise does not expire when you go out of uniform. The DVA website says that it is the duty of all Australians to repay our veterans' commitments in kind.
I agree with that; the coalition agrees with that. But does Labor? What an extraordinary list of talking points we've just heard from the government—an appalling defence, where apparently the real victims are officials in the department.
It is an absolutely bizarre allegation. How on earth can a $748 million cut to spending mean that veterans are being better looked after? How can it be that, if you can't get access to services, the best solution would be to cap allied health services for the veterans who have served Australia so faithfully?
Townsville veterans already know what losing support looks like, thanks to the Albanese Labor government. Regional veterans already face barriers of fewer specialists, longer distances, higher costs and harder access. We have one of Australia's largest serving and ex-serving defence communities.
The Oasis in Townsville was created to support veterans and families transitioning from military to civilian life. It helped these veterans access employment, education, housing, health care and wellbeing services and reconnect with their community. DVA itself previously described the Oasis as providing 'government and community services to Australia's largest veteran community'.
Its work also confronted one of the most confronting issues for the veteran community, which is suicide. But the Oasis closed its doors in December 2025 following a funding dispute with the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth terminated a $4½ million grant.
Meanwhile, the government has made $8 million available to support bilbies. Apparently bilbies are more important to Labor than our veterans. Lieutenant General John Caligari warned that veterans could again be left without that home base, somewhere they could turn up and feel safe.
That should have been a wake-up call. But instead of Townsville being a model for supporting veterans, it's an example of what happens when support disappears. Andy Cullen, who's an Afghanistan veteran with 17 years of service, is a fourth-generation soldier.
His 18-year-old son is considering joining the ADF, but Andy is now discouraging his son from becoming the fifth generation of that family, because he doesn't trust the government to look after his son if he is injured, because trust has been broken. Australian Labor should be ashamed. What message are we sending?
Australia needs people who are willing to serve. We cannot ask them to risk everything while penny pinching on their care afterwards. When did veterans start being treated as a budget line item?
Their care isn't a government generosity; it is an obligation. Stop the word games, scrap the $5,000 threshold, remove the bureaucratic hurdle and honour the promise Australia has made that we will look after those who serve—and that will not stop when they take their uniforms off—and that we will continue to care for those veterans who have served and who have been injured protecting this nation.
It is extraordinary that Labor would roll out talking points about department officials when the real victims are veterans who are now committing suicide—the terror of not being able to access the right care, the right allied health services, thanks to this government's penny pinching. It is an absolutely un-Australian way. Cut the cap.