Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment (Veterans' Healthcare Without Caps) Bill 2026

Senator SHOEBRIDGE (New South Wales) (09:25): It's pretty extraordinary that we need a piece of legislation that says the government can't put arbitrary caps and ceilings on the legitimate health services for veterans. It is extraordinary that we have to come in here and legislate to say, for any class of Australians who need allied health care and medical help, that the government can't put an arbitrary dollar cap on it.

But that's what we have to do today. To all those veterans out there who were feeling so anxious—and they were right to be anxious—about what this government had decided to do to them—to put in place a $5,000 cap on allied health; to all those veterans who had the mental strength, the social connections and the political connections to come together and campaign against that; to all those veterans who needed their friends, colleagues and partners in this place to do it—to all of you, I want to say congratulations on the campaign.

We just saw this morning the government cave in and say they're going to scrap the cap, and that's been the call from veterans. I want to give a shout out to Senator Lambie for her work in this space. Bringing lived experience onto the floor of this chamber is absolutely critical.

Telling it like it is—someone who's been ground through the system—is absolutely critical. I think it cuts through in this space and lets us do work around her and support that work to actually get outcomes for veterans. So I want to acknowledge the work of Jacqui—Senator Lambie.

But I absolutely want to give acknowledgement to the veterans community. I know that there is this position from the coalition that somehow Labor is uniquely bad on veterans. It's just not true.

Labor are following a great coalition tradition of screwing over veterans. When the coalition were in government—I can't remember how bloody long it was, but it was the better part of a decade—the wait list for veterans to get basic entitlements had blown out to the tens of thousands. Veterans were waiting years to get a decision out of Veterans' Affairs.

I'm going to beat up the Albanese Labor government every time they fail, but I'm going to acknowledge that they put the funding into Veterans' Affairs to deal with those wait lists. It was a real thing; it was a real investment. And I'm going to say that I saw Minister Keogh try and drive through that change—tick!

But what the bloody hell was with the caps? You do all that—you start building trust amongst veterans—and then you just wipe it all off the table by coming in with a $5,000 arbitrary cap on allied health care. The little bit of trust that veterans might have been getting with the system just shattered again.

And they're sick of it. Veterans I talk to are sick of it. They're sick of having to be political playthings and having to play politics to just get basic decency out of the government.

Just like they had to play politics when the coalition wouldn't process their claims and left them hanging for years without treatment and without compensation, now they've had to play politics again and find everyone they can work with in order to overturn this appalling $5,000 cap. Again, I am going to say it is good to see the minister finally accept reality today and scrap the cap.

I can tell you this: we've got Senate estimates coming up in a few weeks time, and I and my party, the Greens, are going to make bloody sure that the cost saving of three-quarters of a billion dollars that the government wanted to gouge out of veterans is stripped out of that budget. We can have all the talk we like in this place about legislation, but, at the end of the day, it comes down to their putting their money where their mouths are and our making sure they're not ripping three-quarters of a billion dollars away from veterans' health care.

This was always a budget cash grab. If we were going to find out where the real nasties are in government, I reckon it was the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and some of the other senior leadership team in government, no doubt including the leader of the Senate here, all coming together and working out how they could get three-quarters of a billion dollars back into the budget.

And they thought veterans would just suck it up—well, they didn't. Veterans got organised and started contacting my office and Jacqui's office. They probably started with Jacqui's office.

They contacted the crossbench and then they went to the coalition as well because they just needed the numbers. To all those veterans listening, and I reckon a few of them are listening, I hope you've learnt that there are people who'll stick up for you and basically stick up for decency. That's actually a lesson we need to keep remembering in politics—that it's not all just a bunch of self-serving weasels who want to suck money from you.

You need to lean into decency in politics when you see it, and veterans did. Congratulations to all of you for doing that work. But I also say this: I don't reckon this is over.

I reckon the budget cutters—the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, no doubt—are probably still looking to get a cost saving out of veterans, and, if they can't get it through the front door, I fear they're going to try it through the back door, and we will be there fighting for you each time. The Greens went in to fight for people on the NDIS who had the government come after them to shamefully take away their benefits.

And the government did that. They got the coalition onside and they stripped away benefits for people on NDIS, just a few weeks ago. We fought for the entitlements for hundreds of thousands of Australians on the NDIS.

We didn't win that one, but we're not going to forget those Australians either, who deserve entitlements and deserve their benefits. I will finish with this. The government are saying they won't support this bill because of unintended consequences.

This seems to be now a Labor pattern. I don't know if anyone remembers, but it was barely a week ago when they said they wouldn't support sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements because of 'unintended consequences' on Palestinians. They seem to not want to take action to protect a group because taking action to protect the group in the large may have tiny unintended consequences over the side here.

That is a rubbish reason for not supporting this bill—unintended consequences on veterans. I reckon, if you did a straw poll of 1,000 veterans and said, 'Are you willing to take as yet unspecified unintended consequences floated by Labor in a bill that says they can't make arbitrary cuts to your entitlements? Or do you want the bill to go through which says they can't do arbitrary cuts on your entitlements?' 100 per cent of veterans would line up and say, 'Support the bloody bill.' The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Sterle ): Senator Shoebridge, I'll just interrupt you for a second.

I've listened intently since I've taken the seat, and I know you're passionate about this, but there are schoolchildren on the second level behind you and I ask you to consider your choice of words, please. Senator SHOEBRIDGE: I don't know what schoolkids you mix with, but— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I don't need an argument, Senator. Senator SHOEBRIDGE: I think a word beginning with 'b'— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Resume your seat.

I don't need an argument. I'm quite happy to entertain it should that be the case, but I'm not going to embarrass this chamber anymore in front of our visitors. There's another group of schoolchildren over there.

I've asked you to consider your language. I didn't ask you to withdraw—I could do, but I didn't. Senator SHOEBRIDGE: The standing orders wouldn't support you getting me to withdraw that.

There have been multiple rulings, so you can ask me, but I won't. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator, for your social medias, that might be pretty cool. I didn't ask you to withdraw.

You have the call. I ask you again: please choose your words cautiously. Senator SHOEBRIDGE: Thank you.

I do choose my words carefully. I've got to tell you this: veterans are red-hot angry about what this government has done, and they're red-hot angry about politicians who are going to vote against this bill, and they're red-hot angry at the Labor Party for trying to shut down debate. They're red-hot angry about the Labor Party bringing in legislative measures to strip away three-quarters of a billion dollars from veterans without ever talking to them.

And they're red-hot angry about politics in this place that tries to disguise the reality of what's happening. And they're red-hot angry about politicians who won't speak the truth about what's going on. And they're red-hot angry about this.

They use language far, far coarser than I've used in this debate, and they direct it at the Labor Party and at politicians who don't tell the truth. So I'm not interested in having the Labor Party police my language in this. I'm not interested in talking nice about a plan to gouge three-quarters of a million dollars from veterans who need their health care.

I'll tell you what: veterans aren't interested in being tone-policed by a government that wants to strip away their rights for life-saving treatment. That's why they're saying: 'Support this bill.' They don't want a tone language from the Labor Party trying to hide and disguise their reasons for voting against this bill. Do you know what?

If you want to stop the red-hot language, then stop attacking people with less power than you.