Anthony Albanese and several senior members of the government are using question time to attack the former Morrison government for its handling of a huge backlog in processing claims for financial assistance from Defence veterans.
Albanese accused the Coalition of doing nothing for the 42,000 veterans whose claims for help had not even started to be assessed by the Department of Veterans Affairs when the Labor government came to office in 2022.
The move follows an opinion piece by this masthead’s Shane Wright last week, in which he revealed this month’s budget had allocated an extra $6.5 billion in veterans’ payments.
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The payments were hitting the budget bottom line as the government had increased the number of staff within Veterans Affairs to process outstanding claims that would now be paid.
Albanese said the government had made a deliberate decision on coming to office to clear the backlog while the Coalition had ignored the needs of veterans.
He said some of those 42,000 veterans would never receive their entitlement as they would die before finally getting assessed.
“We owe our veterans more than words and tributes, we owe them more than gratitude, we owe them what they have earned,” he said.
“They have earned this by wearing a uniform, by defending our nation and honouring us with their presence. This is long overdue money.”
In his budget reply speech, Liberal leader Peter Dutton committed to cutting the number of public servants.
The government has funded almost 1000 extra public servants, to replace labour hire employees in the Veterans Affairs Department to work through the backlog.
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, also the defence minister, said the Coalition in office had used the defence force as a marketing ploy, ignoring the real needs of veterans.
He said in February 2021, then-prime minister Scott Morrison attended RAAF base Williamtown in NSW.
“The substance of that announcement was less important than the theatre. We had Top Gun music, pageantry, we had hoopla,” he said.
“A year earlier, on January 4, at the height of the black summer bushfires, those opposite produced an ad featuring the Australian Defence Force to raise money for the Liberal Party.
“These two incidents characterise the essence of the Liberals, because as they see it, defence is all about politics, defence is all about them.” Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh said the Veterans’ Affairs Department was now better funded than at any time in the past 30 years.
“This is not about politics, it’s about doing the right thing,” he said.
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