MOTIONS

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (10:46): We're winning. On this issue, we are winning, thanks to the veterans who are standing up. Thank you so much.

You are winning. I'm honoured to support you. I'm honoured to sign this motion from Senator Lambie.

Minister, you opened the door, and I thank you for that. But at the moment they're only words, and words mean nothing. It's the intent.

You can talk about spending billions of dollars, but it's the intent and the efficiency with which it's spent. The backlog of claims under your government has increased. Veteran suicides remain so high that government action cannot wait another day.

We need to see concrete details. How many vets need to die? I'm feeling a mixture of feelings at the moment, which I'll get onto in a minute.

But let me just read into the Hansard clause (a) of Senator Lambie's motion that I co-signed: 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 That's one reason I signed this. And I have a mixture of feelings.

I'm feeling afraid for the vets who are hanging by a thread. I'm feeling downright angry at the same time. I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling grief and I'm feeling shame—shame that we're part of a parliament that has a history of ignoring veterans.

I have all those feelings. But I can't help the depth of the feelings in veterans at the moment. What do they need?

What do we need? We need justice. We're not getting it.

We need fairness. We need truth and honesty—not getting it. And veterans need to be heard.

The fact that you've accepted this motion and allowed it by leave means we're winning and we are getting to the point where you are acknowledging indirectly that you're listening or that you've heard. This Labor government, like the coalition before it, has taken the position of treating veterans with disrespect and abuse and has failed to provide them with the support they deserve.

Why? Because your government is under pressure—self-inflicted pressure: your waste, hypocrisy, deceit. Everyone in Australia can feel the pressure—through inflation, through skimping of services—but we don't need to include the veterans in that, and that's what we're doing.

Your self-inflicted waste of taxpayer funds leaves you with the shortage. Now you're penny pinching—the cap comes in, the spending on DVA decreases this year and then increases in the future—because you've got budget pressures that are self-inflicted. Why should the vets pay for that?

Why? Placing a cap on allied health care will reduce the vital care that many veterans need and deserve. Why should travel be part of the cap?

We've got Mr Farley in the lower house, representing Farrer, saying that a big portion of the cap is chewed up in his electorate by travel. Why should travel be included? But there are so many other things that I'll talk about in a minute.

Veterans have served their country at massive personal risk and massive personal cost. Yet, upon their return or discharge from service, they've been ignored and hurt by this Labor government's penny pinching in the knowledge that their actions abandon their vets. You know this is going on—or maybe you don't, because listening is not one of your strengths.

Is it deliberate? Is it incompetence? Is it dishonesty?

Is it fear—running away from issues? The three keys that mark this Albanese Labor government, in my opinion, are dishonesty—we were able to use the word 'lies', but we're not allowed to now—waste and hypocrisy. Last week, I had the pleasure and the honour of joining Wounded Heroes in Townsville—a support group that's received no Commonwealth funding despite the valuable support they've provided and continue to provide for our vets.

They're a crisis intervention centre. A veteran calls and says he or she hasn't got a home. They need medical treatment, they're about to commit suicide or they talk about one of their mates.

Wounded Heroes springs into action. They receive no government funding. They raise money through their own business and through donations.

I must give them a plug for the marvellous work they do and point out that they've got a fundraising event at Castle Hill in Townsville on the 20th of this month. Government, you're wasting billions, and you're not concerned about veterans. Martin and Kim Shaw—Martin turned away from a career as a merchant banker in which he could have made millions, because he was so concerned about veterans.

Martin and Kim Shaw; Dave, their manager; the volunteers in their businesses; the volunteers in their op shops—what an amazing group of people. That's what I call commitment and service. It was so refreshing to meet retired Lieutenant General Greg Bilton.

He's retired, and he's volunteering as the chairman of Wounded Heroes. His eyes were alight as he discussed his love for the military, his love for veterans and the fact that he's got something really important to do in his life. But the government doesn't help Wounded Heroes.

It does not help Wounded Heroes at all. It's so refreshing to hear Greg Bilton talking about the inadequacies of the DVA and the inadequacies of the top brass of our military. And there's some sadness, but he's alive because he knows he's contributing.

Associated services like Veterans First Consulting—and Kevin Chapman, who I met—are such wonderful people. They're data driven. Speaking of being data driven, I've just come from Senator Whitten's office, where we've got two representatives from Trojan's Trek, Dan and Tim.

They're pushing an evidence based approach to caring for veterans and providing them with the necessary mental and physical health support. Evidence based! That's something I've noticed so much with veterans.

As I've said before in the Senate, the best conversations I've had since being a senator have been with veterans. They're disciplined and self-disciplined, they can use data, they can speak profoundly well and they're just basically marvellous people. Trojan's Trek showed me graphs with data backing them that shows they are indeed taking an evidence based approach.

Dan, as he's talking to me about his own condition, tells me he was told he'd never walk again, but watching a young lady in the gym pounding through weights inspired him, and he's now living a normal life, but he's got the evidence. Trojan's Trek is having success but no funding. So many veterans organisations are having success with no funding.

Ongoing veteran care is disgracefully underresourced. It's a blight on the Labor-Liberal coalition uniparty. When they're in opposition, they promise all the support for veterans. 'It's a really shameful approach to the veterans,' they say the government is taking.

But then when they get into government they don't do anything, correct? They hide, and they forced veterans to jump through hoops to access care for service related injuries and conditions. That's cruel and heartless.

We can have veterans coming up against their allied healthcare cap in a matter of five months into the new financial year, and then they stop. This is what they're afraid of. They stop, and that interrupts their healing, especially if it's a mental health treatment, and they fall backwards.

This Labor government's approach and the coalition's approach before it are a contributing factor to serious mental health issues for many of our returned servicemen and servicewomen. They deserve far better. Action needs to be taken now.

Stop the delays. Cut the red tape. Cut the crap, and support these vets now by adopting the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.

This is not only affecting the vets who have returned from service or been discharged from service. This is affecting the future service of the Defence Force in this country. It's dramatically affecting retention and recruitment, because it's eroding the concept of mateship, which is the strategically most important concept in the Australian Defence Force.

It's not just the future of the ADF that's at stake here. It's the security of 28 million Australians who rely on the ADF for their security. Right now, the Chinese Communist Party would be watching.

They can see what I can see. They can see what Senator Lambie can see. They can see what so many veterans can see—the deterioration of our armed forces under the current top brass.

They're spending money for DEI initiatives, money for woke policies, money for transgender. You can't change gender, but here we are. We're getting people are getting paid to change gender or claim they're changing gender and paying for dresses for them.

These are warriors. They cannot change their sex. No-one can change their sex.

This is happening for two reasons. The senior brass has been politicised, and the senior brass—the defence department, the politicians in Labor and Liberal who've been defence ministers and the senior brass‑is weak, not providing the right leadership. Right now on the other side of the Pacific in the United States, we've got an administration that's calling its soldiers warriors.

It's going well for the members of the military. I'm going to read clause B, the second clause of Senator Lambie's motion, 'calls on the Albanese government to urgently implement evidence-based'—your veterans are doing it—'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'.

This is not too much to ask. This is basic respect for veterans who have treated our country with respect. In concluding, I take it that, because you've accepted this motion, you can see the vets have really put on a very, very strong case in the last few months, and we're proud to support them.

It's the least we can do. Veterans, you're winning because these people are allowing us to speak.