CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Mr WILKIE (Clark) (09:57): The Minister for Veterans' Affairs admitted that he got it wrong when he refused to meet a delegation of veterans a few weeks ago. But talk to veterans in my community about the difficulties they face accessing services and about this government's ongoing disregard for their wellbeing, and you'll find that refusing a meeting is far from the only thing the minister's got wrong.
Take the veteran being treated for prostate cancer who had a DVA covered surgical procedure last month. At his post-surgery check-up, he overheard the receptionist telling another veteran that the practice had stopped taking DVA patients. Why?
Because DVA is slow to pay, slow to pre-approve and simply won't answer the phone. Moreover, in the first veteran's case, the receptionist had spent nearly two hours on hold to DVA and never got through, despite him already holding a letter confirming his cancer was covered. His surgery only proceeded because it was approved literally on the morning of the operation.
Hobart has as few as six urologists. If DVA keeps driving them away, then veterans with cancer will wait longer to be treated, if they're treated at all. Then there's DVA's decision to use a single company, Medico-Legal Consultants of Australia, to provide medical assessments of veterans claims.
Veterans and serving personnel say MLCOA is more concerned about saving money than getting soldiers the help they need. Indeed, according to an article published in the Daily Telegraph, one soldier who dislocated his shoulder at least 20 times while in the army was told by an MLCOA doctor that his shoulder was 'better than most shoulders out there'. This flies in the face of recommendation 101 of the royal commission, which says that veterans should be afforded a similar choice and autonomy to NDIS participants, including the right to choose their own rehabilitation provider.
Finally, I come to the plan to cap allied health treatment for veterans at $5,000. Now, I do have a conflict of interest here because I have DVA accepted conditions for my knee, shoulders, hearing and any future cancers, but that will not silence me when I see such appalling conduct by the government. The fact is that the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide did not recommend a cap, and every time the Prime Minister and Minister for Veterans' Affairs say so, they are misleading the nation.
What it did recommend was an increase in fees for medical services, which the government is promising to deliver, which is good. But giving the game away are the budget papers, which identify the cap as a budget saving of about $750 million over just the first three years, and that stinks.