Ms HALL (11:54 AM) —I rise to speak on the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Bill 2003 and the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2003. This legislation is of great importance to the electorate of Shortland as there are a large number of veterans, war widows and ex-service people who reside within my electorate. I have listened to their concerns and acknowledge the fine contribution that they have made to Australia over the years.

It is important to note that this legislation brings military compensation together for the first time. Assuming this legislation passes—and there is no guarantee that it will—future ADF personnel will be covered by one act, not two, which will be a significant step forward. The dual operation of two acts, particularly since 1972, has seen a great deal of confusion. Simplifying that will be a great achievement, provided that the end result is simpler and fairer.

As my colleague the member for Cowan has stated, we are not convinced that this has been achieved in the drafting of the legislation. The difficulty is that, while it is necessary to provide one single scheme, in Australia we have two policies—one for veterans and one for peacetime service. We have a strong culture for veterans stemming from World War I, which gave those who served overseas in the most terrible conditions imaginable special recognition and benefits that were commensurate with the nature of the war fought and the state of society at that particular time. The split of culture continued until World War II, when again our forces overseas endured terrible conditions in a major international conflict.

To a large extent, this was a reflection of the voluntary nature of our forces. Since then, however, our forces—with the exception of Vietnam—have been regular forces where pay and conditions were substantially better; where sacrifices in the normal work force were not sacrifices to the same degree. That is not to say that conditions were any better—in fact, we know that in Korea and Vietnam they were very tough indeed.

In coming to a new single scheme for military compensation, it is important that the traditional values we attach to service overseas—especially where conditions are extreme and where our service people's lives are threatened—are properly matched against the standards we have come to expect for a salaried and superannuated work force. That is the tension in the policy behind this legislation. The question, therefore, is whether the government has got it right, and we question that.

From listening to veterans in Shortland, I am very aware that there is a very strong desire to ensure that the values and benefits attached to veterans in the past are maintained. Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you get the same message from veterans in your electorate that I receive from mine. Comparison will be made of the proposed new scheme against the old scheme. We therefore need to be assured that there has been no dilution. Preferably, we should be making sure that deficiencies in the current scheme, as they operate singularly and in tandem, are fixed.

It is instructive to look at some of these deficiencies, and so I refer first to the needs of war widows. I have many war widows in my electorate, some who do it tough and others who think the system is unfair. It is pleasing to see in these bills that it brings together the old with the new. A clear choice has been made between a lifelong, indexed, tax-free pension and a lump sum equivalent—that is, a choice of a pension of $13,000 a year or a lump sum of $380,000 in lieu for a widow aged 35.

It is also pleasing to see that the additional lump sums made under the Defence Act are to be retained, though there is a sharp difference of view as to whether a widow of a serviceman who died in peacetime service should be entitled to such a lump sum, which is $60,000 less than that received by a widow whose partner died as the result of service overseas on warlike duty. Some, who subscribe to the traditional difference attributed to overseas service, believe that the difference is supportable. Others, who do not distinguish between grief for a loved one lost in peacetime service and a loved one lost overseas, do not.

Another longstanding shortcoming of the policy towards widows, which does not change in this legislation, is that a widow's benefit is dependent in value not just on the type of service rendered but on proof that the cause of death is service related. There are many widows in my electorate of Shortland who have been denied a war pension simply because they have been unable to show that the cause of death of their husband was service related. I would like to touch on one particular case of a woman whose husband's death was related to his service. Unfortunately for that woman, her husband was treated in a hospital in an area where he was unknown, and the doctor failed to write on the death certificate that the cause of death related to his service. For many years this woman has been trying to resolve the problem, but it has not been resolved—and that is because of the failure of the current system. We know that these problems exist and that the probability of proving that death is related to service declines rapidly with age. The result is that we have two classes of widows of ex-servicemen: those who can prove the link and those, like the constituent I just spoke of, who cannot. This will not change as a result of this legislation, and that is a great pity.

On a more positive note, it is pleasing to see that future widows will be treated more generously and that there will be no discrimination in benefits depending on children. Here I refer to the grossly unfair provision of the Veterans' Entitlements Act which denies war widows access to the income support supplement—and therefore the concession card—where they are widowed and have no children living at home. I am sure most of the members in this House have been visited by widows of veterans who are in this situation. It often occurs in relation to widows of Vietnam veterans. This is very unfair, not just because these widows experience such a dramatic drop in their entitlements at the time of the death but also because a widow with children who subsequently sees them leave home retains the ISS.

It is a great pity that we cannot make some of these policies retrospective. While I do not as a rule believe that legislation should be retrospective, this situation poses the question of how we can get past policies more in line with current policies and those of the future. The blending of war widows entitlements between the old and the new legislation is a very good example of this issue, and we can only hope that in future policy formulation more initiatives will be taken with the goal of bringing policies into line.

I also want to refer to the categories of TPI and extreme disability, both of which are represented amongst the veterans in Shortland electorate. Veterans from both those groups come and visit me on a regular basis and talk to me about issues relating to these categories. Just as with the war widows policy, there is a huge gulf between the way in which we compensate those who can no longer work as a result of service related injuries under the Veterans' Entitlements Act and under the Military Compensation Scheme. Put simply, we in modern society agree that everyone who is injured and is no longer able to work should be compensated for lost wages. Under the VEA, stemming from World War I, this compensation took the form of a pension, indexed and tax free for life. In the modern Military Compensation Scheme it takes the form of 100 per cent pay for 12 months after being discharged as medically unfit, followed by 70 per cent of indexed pay until age 65 and normal superannuation thereafter. What is more, those on this incapacity pay, as it is termed, are encouraged to work as much as they can, with protection of their income support through a gradual reduction until they achieve 100 per cent of former pay.

This is sensible rehabilitation at work. I have worked in rehabilitation in the past, and I know that, where there is an incentive to return to work and where veterans—or workers—are supported in their endeavours to return to work, you have the most successful and the best outcomes. It is therefore pleasing to see that in this legislation this system has been adopted for future service people. The legislation guarantees income support at a reasonable level and, as I said, encourages rehabilitation. Those injured retain compensation in full for the degree of their injury, as a lump sum or a pension—and that too is a vast improvement.

However, as the member for Cowan has referred to, we are concerned at the effect of retaining the TPI special rate. As we know, it as a safety net—primarily because, as we have seen from the very active campaign by the TPI community over the last four years, this is a very unsatisfactory benefit. As the TPI Federation have said, it would be better to simply have a minimum of 75 per cent of MTAWE as a safety net and not bring all of the problems of the special rate into the new legislation. This is very disappointing indeed. All the other benefits of the TPI are retained, and such a suggestion would bring more guarantee and would better reflect the modern policy framework I described at the outset.

With respect to the EDA benefit currently provided in the VEA for those who become very incapacitated after ceasing a working career, no provision is made at all. That will be a great disappointment to the EDA association in my local area. They have been very concerned about the fact that they have been ignored over a long period of time, and they were looking to the government to do something about that issue in this legislation before the parliament.

The bills do provide for similar compensation and the same medical support as that which is currently available, as well as full superannuation. To that extent it is a very different scheme. Those people who would be entitled to the current EDA will be entitled to similar benefits but, importantly, the contrast between the current EDA and the current TPI benefits will be totally removed. Put simply, in the future, compensation for being unable to work will apply only to the period of a working life—that is, the community standard of 65 years of age. Benefits will not extend beyond age 65, except for disability compensation where the pension is chosen over a lump sum. To the extent that this terrible dichotomy between EDA and TPI has been removed, it is a good thing. EDAs, in particular, need to know that while EDA as a class of veterans may not exist in the future, there will be greater fairness in the way benefits are structured; but I do know that that will be a disappointment to the EDAs in my electorate, as I mentioned earlier.

For others in my electorate, there are other benefits in these bills, which would also be nice if they could be made retrospective. One is the funeral benefit, which is currently set at $572—which we all know is completely inadequate and relies on bereavement pay to bridge the gap for the cost of a funeral. In these bills, the funeral benefit is increased to match that currently available in the Military Compensation Scheme, and that is $4,600. That may not be enough, either, in terms of current costs, but it is much fairer. We can only hope that it is only a matter of time before the current level of funeral benefits in the VEA is upgraded. I hope that the minister and the government take that on board, because it certainly would be much valued by veterans in Shortland electorate.

I will make some observations on other matters in this legislation. There is a Senate committee looking at these bills, and it will be taking evidence in Perth, Melbourne and Canberra next week. Naturally, we on this side of the parliament will not be determining our position until that process is complete. We have signalled, however, some unsatisfactory elements in these bills, including the messiness of the safety net, to which I have already referred, and the unsatisfactory nature of the review process. On the latter, there is a unanimous Senate committee report recommending changes to these provisions, so it is probably fair to say that we in the ALP will seek to amend the bills accordingly. I also understand that representations from some ex-service organisations, by way of a submission to the current Senate committee, have already been acknowledged by the department; in fact, there may even be some government amendments. I certainly hope so. If nothing else, this indicates some haste in drafting this legislation—and that is difficult to understand, given that we have been on notice since at least 1994 that this legislation would be necessary.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the failure of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs to deliver her long-awaited response to the Clarke report yesterday. We on this side of the House were all geared up for it, and we were exceptionally disappointed when she failed to address the parliament on that yesterday—as were all the veterans who had travelled to Canberra to hear what the minister had to say. The government have let veterans down yet again and have not shown them the respect they deserve. They deserve a response to the Clarke report, a report that many veterans in Shortland electorate and throughout Australia put submissions to. From my own experience, the announcement of the Clarke review was well received by the veterans and war widows in the Shortland electorate. Veterans were looking forward to putting submissions to the review. But, unfortunately, even though they saw this as their chance to not only have their say but also to bring about change, they have been disappointed. And yesterday the government still could not agree amongst themselves on a suitable response to the report. They could not sit down and nut out a response to the Clarke report that would satisfy the veterans that I represent in this House. I am very disappointed about that. The government vacillate and the veterans wait. It is not good enough. Our veterans deserve better.

It worries me that the government will choose to ignore most of the submissions from veterans, in particular all those seeking extension of gold card eligibility and submissions from those who served at atomic testing sites. The government knew full well before they embarked on this course that they had not the slightest intention of doing anything in these matters. The entire process was a stalling device to delay and procrastinate, and they are still doing it. Veterans and widows who put their hopes in this very democratic and consultative process have been duped. The whole thing has been an unnecessary stunt to allow the minister to pontificate about the government's intentions and to feed her hungry but useless publicity machine. It is probably the cruellest hoax ever perpetrated on veterans, and I can tell the minister that, in Shortland electorate, even her political supporters think she has defrauded them. The failure of the minister to respond to the Clarke report yesterday is further evidence to the veterans community that the minister is out of touch and unable to deliver. (Time expired)