Dr WASHER (1:02 PM) —I am delighted that the member for Bass wishes this House to acknowledge that veterans are entitled to receive adequate and appropriate medical care, in view of their services to this country. It is a happy occasion when both sides of the House agree. It is precisely because the government does believe firmly that veterans are entitled to receive adequate and appropriate medical care that significant improvements have been made to veterans' entitlements since the coalition took office in 1996.

In the last seven years, this coalition government has increased the Veterans' Affairs budget from $6.2 billion to $9.2 billion. The government has introduced a range of initiatives and benefits to compensate veterans for their sacrifices and to commemorate their dedication and bravery. The veteran community in Australia deserves our recognition and support. It deserves a properly funded system that offers appropriate care and compensation, and the coalition government has provided these. By increasing the Veterans' Affairs budget by $3 billion over the past seven years, the coalition government has quite publicly made clear its support for, and commitment to, our veteran community.

The gold card remains the mainstay of the repatriation health system. More than a quarter of a million ex-service men and women are gold card holders. These men and women have given selflessly to their country in wars and conflicts, and the gold card represents an assurance that they will have access to medical treatment for all conditions, whether they are related to war service or not. For some time the gold card has been an automatic entitlement for our former prisoners of war, as well as for recipients of totally and permanently incapacitated pensions and for war widows, in recognition of their greater health needs. Since 1996 the federal government has recognised the growing health needs of other veterans as they grow older. In 1999 the government extended the gold card to Australian veterans and mariners aged 70 or over with qualifying service from World War II. In July last year, the government extended the gold card even further to cover all Australian veterans aged 70 or over with qualifying service from any conflict. So, as I said earlier, the gold card is the mainstay of the repatriation health system. That is still most definitely the case.

The vast majority of doctors throughout Australia are continuing to treat gold card holders. The publicity suggesting that this is not so is at best misleading and at worst alarmist. This misinformation is causing a great deal of unnecessary distress and concern among members of the veteran community, who are being misled into believing that their health care is being compromised. This is not the case. Statistics can prove anything. It depends entirely on how you interpret them and what background information you have. The comedian Dave Allen once pointed out that one in 10 motor accidents was caused by drink-driving. He observed that that meant that nine out of 10 motor accidents were caused by sober drivers and asked who, therefore, posed the greater risk. Of course, commonsense prevails, and we know that drink-driving on our roads is far more lethal than driving sober. You can turn statistics on their head and make them prove almost anything.

It is the same with the publicity surrounding the gold card and the supposed refusal of certain doctors to recognise it. The claim that 2,000 letters that were not responded to represented 2,000 doctors withdrawing from the gold card system is quite untrue. The following are the facts. The structure of fees paid to local medical officers—LMOs—was made under a memorandum of understanding between the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the AMA. With the memorandum of understanding due to run out in December last year, the process to negotiate a new agreement began. When it became clear that a new agreement would not be in place by the expiry date of the old agreement, the department sent out 15,000 letters to individual doctors and to practices where doctors had billed the department during the previous 12 months. The letter offered doctors the opportunity to extend their current contracts to 30 June 2003. Doctors were not asked to respond, other than to take up the offer and extend their contracts. The mailing list was not completely up to date. How many mailing lists are? How many members have received an electoral roll update or done a mail-out within the electorate, only to find dozens of letters returned, although the information is allegedly current? So it is with the doctors. Many of these letters would have gone to practices that were no longer open, as some doctors would have died, retired or moved overseas. (Time expired)