MOTIONS

Senator LAMBIE (Tasmania) (10:24): by leave—I, and also on behalf of Senators Canavan, Shoebridge, David Pocock, Thorpe, Roberts and Payman, move: We move—That the Senate: (a) notes that today marks two years since the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide handed down its Final Report, yet many veterans and their families continue to face barriers to accessing timely care and support; and (b) calls on the Albanese Government to urgently implement evidence-based policies and action the accepted recommendations from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, recognising that further delay is placing veterans' lives and wellbeing at risk.

It's been two years since the royal commission handed down their seven-volume report—two years since thousands of Australian veterans and their families went before the commissioners, reliving their trauma again and having to tell their stories again to share with the Australian people the terrible harm that was done to them by the Department of Veterans' Affairs and Defence.

Once again, I thank them for their courage, especially the mothers like Julie-Ann Finney, who is in the chamber today, and of course my very dear friend and a former veteran himself, Andrew Wilkie from the other place. I am also very sad to find out that we lost another veteran, a former 3RAR, over the weekend—my love and condolences to the family. Once again, I see Defence and DVA still not keeping up with veteran suicide.

They can't tell us a number. They're not interested. Well, you should be interested because the reason that they are taking their lives has usually got something to do with yourselves.

In this interim report, Commissioner Kaldas called out Defence, who were refusing to hand over documents—and still don't hand over documents. He also said that cultural problems still exist in Defence and that barely a week goes by without the inquiry being alerted to another veteran suicide. The unfortunate thing is we seem to be going back to those days.

Commissioner Kaldas also said; All of this raises questions as to whether Defence is committed to making change in the best interests of its members or whether they're just going through the motions. Yes. I'm sorry to tell the former commissioner, but it looks like we're going through the motions still.

In terms of Defence, I can tell you they are still, like I said, going through the motions. We've had multiple reports over the years about the levels of sexual assault in our military and the lack of actions to pursue perpetrators and protect victims. The government and Defence have still done nothing to make real change.

I'll be bringing a bill to this place in October that will change the way sexual assault allegations are actually dealt with, and I would encourage the government to support my bill. I was in Townsville earlier this year visiting the veterans and their associations. I hoped that I would hear that claims processing was speeding up and that veterans were getting a fair hearing.

After two days I found myself bursting into tears in Townsville, wondering what the hell I've been doing up here for 10 years. I really did. It broke my bloody heart that they had to go and relive their stories.

They were brave enough and had the courage to do that, and we seem to be trickling along after the royal commission. We're two years in after the royal commission, and we're going backwards again—nothing to see here. Well, I'd remind you I have five years left in this place, and, if you don't start pulling up your socks, I'll be in here every day stopping parliament until it's done, because one of us is going to get annoyed and it won't be me.

I've got plenty of resilience. Like I said, I've got five years left, so start changing! Start changing!

DVA put on more staff when the royal commission was still going on. Claims were getting processed faster, but once again we're going backwards. It's gotten even worse.

Five months after Townsville, about six weeks ago, I was in Brisbane hearing from doctors who weren't being paid for reports that the DVA were already using. Well, I find that plain theft, and that is unconscionable. That is absolutely unconscionable.

I bet you still have not paid these doctors for those reports, because you are weaving me. You are avoiding me like nothing else I've seen. You pay those doctors for those reports!

You are shameful! Some of those doctors have thousands on their books, and you know why? It's because they understand veterans.

That's why we go to them. They have an interest in dealing with us. Not every GP or specialist out there wants to deal with us.

That's fine. That is their call, but there are plenty that still do. When they do, with the limited number that we have, they've got thousands of us on their books.

I heard from advocates that claims were slowing, and I was hearing from veterans that some providers and advocates were ripping them off. But, instead of coming down hard on the providers, the department has taken it out on the veterans like it's our fault. We're wearing it because you won't do your job properly.

I suggest you look at your security team. That'd be you, Mr Kefford. That'd be you because you have suicide on your conscience, mate.

You're going after the wrong people, Kefford! You're going after the wrong people! Leave us alone!

In the 2026 budget, the government announced the $5,000 cap on veterans' allied health care, which includes neuropsychology, exercise physiology physiotherapy, podiatry, just to name a few. The reason we have health supports is to help veterans like me get back on their feet so we can return to the workforce. It helps with our mental health if we are still being productive within our country.

I don't think you're getting that point. You should be throwing everything you can at us, especially if we haven't been written off, to keep us in the workforce because we need it. We need it.

We need it so we feel wanted, not like we're just thrown out of the military and that's the end of us. I issued a media release on budget night raising serious concerns about the $5,000 cap. I was told by the minister's office that there was no problem with the cap.

I think we all know there is a massive problem with the cap, and capping health care for Australians who have signed up to serve their country is just disgusting. It's disgusting that you are now capping veterans' health care. Go after others but leave the veterans alone.

It's just another hurdle of bureaucracy that we don't need when we are down and out. We don't need it. We don't want it.

Go and take it out on someone else but leave us alone. The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide happened because of advocacy that started in the 1970s from our beloved Vietnam veterans when they started drawing chalk outlines of bodies outside the Department of Veterans' Affairs. My God, it's 55 years later and suicides are building back up again.

Seriously, you have no conscience. When he handed down his report, Commissioner Kaldas told Australia, 'Australia cannot afford for this royal commission final report to end up on the shelf gathering dust.' If the government want to stop veteran suicides, they need to move faster, they need to move much faster and they need to crack down on the dodgy providers.

And they need to stop dealing with veterans as if they are trying to leech off the system. Veterans don't leech off the system. The government need to remember that the key recommendation for the prevention of suicide was timely access to health care—timely access.

The $5,000 cap flies directly in the face of that. The Prime Minister needs to scrap the cap and get on to putting recommendations into place because, I can assure you, I am on your tail, and it is only going to get worse from here on in if things don't move. We'll go back to the good old days where we are naming and shaming.

You want to come after us veterans? Then I'll switch it back around and, like I said, we'll go back to the good old days—the naming and shaming will begin. The world is in a very dangerous place, and that means we need our Australian Defence Force to be in as good shape as it can possibly be, because God only knows when we're going to be called up again the way things are going.

But if we aren't looking after our veterans before, during or after their service then I have to say: how can you expect them to keep serving us? How can I possibly keep standing here without saying, 'Please don't let your children enlist until the problem is fixed?' Because that is going to hurt your recruiting, especially if I start driving it home. Start making change.

Start putting the veterans first. And, Defence, you're just as bad. The more generals you put on, the worse those diggers get treated.

That's how it works—too much top echelon, too many chiefs, not enough Indians. You're looking after yourselves. You throw us on the scrap pile and then you throw us out to a system that is still not working, like we are no responsibility of yours anymore.

Well, I'll tell you what: this has gone wrong because you should have more responsibility to do more inside before you throw us out, and I do not see you even trying. There's been no lift. There's been no change.

You throw us out like we're garbage and put us into the hands of a bureaucracy that we still can't find our way through and where we've got to wait for our claims for over a year, two years, three years. Do you know what the easiest thing Veterans' Affairs could do is? If you knocked 30 per cent of those claims out and just said, 'That's it; we're accepting them,' my goodness me, not only would that take the pressure off your delegates—maybe they could reset and then keep up with the claims.

But you are going to have to do bigger than putting a 5K cap on us. It's not good enough. So come up and work out a way you can write 30 per cent and just get it over and done with, because you are not catching up.

You have moral issues still going in the Department of Veterans' Affairs, I can assure you, because the public servants are coming at me left, right and centre. It is not good enough. You have something wrong with the top echelon of your Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Maybe the people that have been sitting in there for God knows how many years, since right before this royal commission, who are still at the top, making decisions about our lives and still taking us out, should no longer be there. You would have thought that, after a royal commission, we would have had a clean sweep and you would have said: 'Well, you people at the top of DVA have caused enough problems.

You're out.' By the way, what they should have done was be decent people and put in their resignations. They are the problem and so is your security. They are getting it wrong once again, and you are going around it.

You are going after the wrong people. You go after the providers—be my guest. But for us who have to deal with you—us with claims in—leave us alone.

You are putting pressure on us, and that 5K is enough to send someone for whom that is their last straw to say, 'I'm done.' Just that little thing is enough, and then it's 'I'm done'. You're still not getting that. I suggest you get off your bottoms and stop speaking to ESO Round Table, which, by the way, is not representing my generation or the ones below me.

You put those people on ESORT because they're little 'yes' people that go, 'Yes, okay,' but they're not fighting for my generation. Where's our chance at that table? Where are the people representing us?

Enough of the comfortable zone in there. Do you want to hear the real problems? Do you want to hear what we're feeling?

Well, maybe you need to put us at the table. We've had enough. I've been saying that about the ESORT for a long time.

I've had enough. Putting out a press release, ESORT, is not getting the job done. You're not running ads in papers to help us.

You're not out there on social media with half a million people or close to a million people on there. You don't have that. You're not representing us.

So either get off the goddamn table, or I'll push you out eventually. That's where I am with ESORT.