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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-11-13 Daily Xml
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Remembrance Day

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:30): It is a great honour that I have the opportunity today to speak in this chamber about this year's Remembrance Day services, particularly the one that I attended, and also the sacrifices made by so many fallen and injured soldiers. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, many of us observe a minute's silence and we pay our respects to the soldiers who fought and served in all wars and armed conflicts—and rightfully so. We pause for a minute to remember all the men and women who served in the defence forces and who made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we have today, and indeed the freedom to stand here.

This year, I was given the privilege of officially representing the Leader of the South Australian Labor Party, the Hon. Mr Peter Malinauskas, at the Tea Tree Gully Returned and Services League Memorial Gardens service. It was a sombre and quite well-attended service.

Today, further to the good actions taken by so many who attend such services, I met with the member for Light, who is the shadow minister for veterans' affairs, and Dr Richard Matthews, who served our country in the Royal Australian Air Force, obtaining the rank of flight lieutenant. While serving his country, he sustained an injury that has impacted on his life, but Richard Matthews has never let that set him back. He has continued fighting for the interests of other Australian Defence Force personnel who have become injured and who he believes are getting a raw deal. Dr Richard Matthews has essentially been fighting for the improved concessions for veterans in South Australia.

Currently, the veteran concession card has fallen behind and not kept pace with concessions received by the Department of Human Services concession card holders. Fundamentally, there is an inconsistency at the federal level of disability required for the civilian disability support payment and the cards that are then issued to veterans. Of course, this is in no way an argument for the civilian payments to be reduced.

In 2004, veteran entitlements were changed for anyone who served after 1 July of that year. The practical effect of that meant that, for the last 15 years, to receive the same level of cost-of-living concession as a civilian, the veteran service personnel must reach a level of impairment 400 per cent higher than a civilian must achieve. While it is practically hard to measure such things, a real-world measurement of a 400 per cent level of difference of impairment is that a veteran must lose the use of both legs while a civilian must simply be deaf in one ear.

To me, and I expect to many in our community, this is a horrible standard by which we seek to measure ourselves, let alone those who serve our country in a conflict. The simple answer, of course, would be for veterans to apply for the civilian entitlement. In many cases they do; however, due to the level of income replacement many veterans receive for the loss of function they have incurred, they are simply declined, due to too much taxable income.

Furthermore, under the civilian entitlement, if a serviceperson reintegrates into society, as we might expect they should, and works for longer than 16 hours per week, that veteran will not be eligible for the civilian entitlement anyway. Put simply, the civilian entitlement is not fit for purpose for veterans who may suffer a significant impairment. The easiest method to solve this problem, it seems, is instead to extend concessions to veterans by lowering the level of impairment to what every civilian must achieve; in other words, lowering it back to less than 400 per cent more.

In South Australia, this would simply extend concessions to only around 9,000 individuals, or less than half of 1 per cent of our state's population. Such an action would be consistent with the federal government's somewhat Orwellianly named Australian Veterans' Recognition (Putting Veterans and their Families First) Act, which proposed to do just that thing, but it did not. That act, instead of putting money into veterans' bank accounts to assist with reintegration into society, has prioritised discounts on items, such as 15 per cent off the price of a pair of RM Williams boots.

When it comes to the pressures and realities of returned soldiers with significant impairment, we are not doing enough. I would like to personally and sincerely thank Wayne Langford and Mal for their efforts in organising the Tea Tree Gully Returned and Services League Memorial Gardens service, where I was joined by other dignitaries such as Tony Zappia, the member for Makin, the Hon. Mr Hood from here, and Ms Paula Luethen, the member for King in the other place.

From my conversations with those like Dr Matthews, we clearly must do more. It is clear that there are many here and outside this place who will continue to acknowledge the service of people, like Dr Matthews, who have served and did serve in the Australian Defence Forces. They deserve more than just a few discounts at some local stores; they deserve a fair go consistent with the actions we expect them to take on our behalf, both overseas and here at home.

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