Suspension of Standing and Sessional Orders

Phillip Thompson

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Herbert from moving the following motion immediately:

That this House has no confidence in the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel, and that he should resign immediately.

I want to start by thanking all the veterans around the country who have reached out to their members and the minister and who have been in the fight every single day to scrap this insidious cap of $5,000 on veterans' allied health, because today, veterans, you have won. You have done this. You have made a bad government back down, and I am so proud of you because, without you being in the fight, without you coming to Canberra, without you telling this horrible, horrible minister that he was wrong, we wouldn't be here today. And the coalition has always stood beside you. We stand with you every day because we must honour those that put on the uniform, those that serve this nation, those that deploy on combat operations, those that deploy on humanitarian and peacekeeping missions. When natural disasters occur, the first people we look to are members of the Australian Defence Force. And then, when they become veterans, they deserve respect and a government that looks after them.

Sadly, the Labor Minister for Veterans' Affairs has not done this. He has failed in his duty. He has let them down. He didn't even want to meet with these veterans. It took pressure from the coalition every single day even to get veterans in the room with the minister. His job is to listen, work and deliver on veterans' affairs and Defence personnel matters, and he has failed. He has failed continually. He is failing even today, because he should be standing at the dispatch box in here and he should resign. This veterans' affairs minister has failed, and the Prime Minister, if he had any decency in respect of veterans around this country, would sack that minister, because the veterans have lost confidence in the veterans' affairs minister. I have lost confidence in him. I know it's the Labor Party way that he'll fall up into another position somewhere, but that is not good enough. Veterans right now are looking at this parliament, going: 'What a rabble. What a rabble this Labor government is.' They have been let down time and time again.

The stories that I've read out in this parliament that members across this chamber have received, including those talking about suicide—every single time we brought it to a vote or spoke about it, the Labor government voted against us, voted it down, didn't want to back its veterans, didn't want to get rid of this $5,000 cap on allied health, to the point that they were blue in the face arguing that it was going to be good for veterans and their families. I can tell you that, no, it wasn't.

And now, on the last sitting day of this fortnight, they have done a double backflip. They haven't come into the chamber to announce they're getting rid of this cap; they've just quickly released something in the hope it goes away. But I can tell you that veterans know that it will not go away. They want this Labor Minister for Veterans' Affairs to resign. He should not be in the position he is. He has failed. He has failed and failed and failed time and time again.

When veterans put on the uniform they sign a blank cheque. The blank cheque is they are willing to lay down their life for this nation; they will serve wherever they need to in service of this nation. But our blank cheque to them is 'If you are wounded, injured or ill, we will look after you,' because thanking someone for their service doesn't stop on Anzac Day or Remembrance Day; it is every single day. It's in our covenant. Thanking them for their service is not placing a cap on their allied health.

The stress that veterans have been under—time and time again I've seen and heard from fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, and the veterans themselves, in tears, crying, begging for this Labor government to do the right thing. They got ignored time and time again, to the point where veterans were sitting in the office of the Prime Minister and they got told: 'Don't try and burn the house down. We won't come after you.' Are you kidding me? Threatening veterans? Well, Minister, if you want to stand up and defend your insidious cap, you can after this speech. It is disgraceful. You're either calling the veterans liars or you want to double-down on it. That's all you're doing here.

The veterans' affairs minister wouldn't even rock up. They didn't even see him. When he got made to see them, he sat back, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, said he could have been at the Governor-General's reception having champagne and canapes. Well, I can tell you that the role of the veterans' affairs minister is to meet with veterans, to listen to them, to serve them. It's not to serve the Treasury, who are trying to get a saving; it's not trying to put a cap on our veterans. This was for $748 million in savings. What a disgrace. Imagine trying to take money off veterans health services.

The arguments were, 'It'll only affect a couple of people.' Well, I can tell you now that the 'couple of people' that it could have affected or would have affected was actually not true. I did my own sums. I would have run out of the $5,000 cap in about 2½ months. And I know what happens when you run out of allied health services. I know what happens when the tunnel goes dark and you're in a bad place—I've been there, and so have many of my friends—and I know what happens if you can't get out. When you can't get out then we're carrying coffins, we're going to funerals. This was said, time and time again, by veterans to the minister and to the Prime Minister but nothing was done. They just kept saying that we're blowing this up, that it's a storm in a teacup. Rubbish!

So now, since the minister has decided—he was probably told; I doubt that he made this decision himself. He should walk into this place and resign. He's failed. He has failed in his No. 1 duty in serving our veterans. Veterans from around the country have so much to deal with in everyday life, let alone fighting with a Labor minister. That's not what they want to do. They've already had their fight. They've already been in it. They don't have to fight a government just to get services. That's ridiculous.

These veterans, who have done everything for this nation, everything to support the Australian people, have had a Labor government waltz in and say: 'You know what? "Thank you for your service" doesn't count today. We're going to put this allied health cap on you.' To then have a minister stand up here and repeatedly defend it, saying it was the right thing, and having other Labor ministers pat him on the back and say he's doing a great job—I can tell you that's not what the Australian people feel. They feel let down. They feel let down by an incompetent minister.

This Minister for Veterans' Affairs has not only disgraced himself he's also disgraced the government. He should have stood up and said: 'You know what? If this cap is going to hurt veterans or if this cap is going to hurt their families, then I don't support it.' That's what an honourable person would have done, and that's why we've had to bring on this censure motion. He has failed in his job. The minister at the table, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, keeps interjecting. I hope that she gets up and speaks about it and defends this horrible minister, who has let down the Australian people. This is absolutely disgraceful.

But this is what happens time and time again. The ranks close in. Everyone is doing the right thing. Well, if we didn't have to get into the fight, we wouldn't have to be in this position, and veterans wouldn't be absolutely filled with anxiety around it in all of your electorates. I remember the member for Isaacs came in here yelling. The member for McEwen came in here screaming at everyone, telling all of us that we're wrong. 'No cap. You're wrong. You're doing this.' We've offered to go into their electorates and debate them at their RSLs or their ex-service organisations. It goes quiet then. But the disgrace and the disrespect that this Labor government and this veterans' affairs minister have shown our veterans will never be forgotten. It will never be forgotten. They've let them down. We had veterans come to parliament and take their medals off, lay them down and say, 'I don't want these.' It's a disgusting disgrace that this government has pushed them to that position. It should never be the case.

But today, veterans and your families, you have done this. I want to thank you for getting in the fight with us. I want to thank you for reaching out to all of us to make sure that we can hold this bad Labor government to account, because without you it would have been our voices only. So I want to tell you that your service matters, not just on Anzac Day, not just on Remembrance Day, not just on the battle honour days. It matters every day to me because 'lest we forget' is not just words. It is a commitment. It is a commitment that this Labor minister for veterans' affairs has failed on time and time again. He should walk in today and he should resign. These other ministers who wanted to interject the whole time should get up and defend him, because it is a disgrace and we've scrapped the cap.

Milton Dick

Is the motion seconded?

Michael McCormack

The motion is seconded. My word, the motion is seconded. Standing and sessional orders have to be suspended. Every day, our men and women in the Australian Defence Force go to work. They are tested. Whether that is in battlefield combat, whether that is in peacekeeping deployment or whether that is in the canteen at Puckapunyal, they are tested. Today, there's one particular person in this place, and there's a test upon that person. It's the Prime Minister of this country. The test is: will he maintain the faith in his hapless minister? Will the Minister for Veterans' Affairs and Minister for Defence Personnel still have his job by the end of today?

I have right here what should be the last media release from Minister Matt Keogh. It is a statement on veteran allied health changes dated 17 September 2026. When you read this, you start to realise how crook this government is when it comes to veterans' care. It says:

The Albanese Government has a deep respect for our veterans who have, and who continue to serve our country. Anyone who pulls on our nation's uniform to serve in our name deserves nothing less.

Tell that to the more than half a million veterans who for weeks, for months, have wondered why there needed to be an arbitrary dollar figure placed on their courage, on their duty, on their noble service, on their allied health—a $5,000 cap on their physical health and on their psychological care. It's not good enough, Prime Minister. It's not good enough, Minister.

The media release continues:

We have been consulting on this measure, and we have heard from veterans there are concerns about this approach.

They have not been consulting. They did not consult prior to the May budget. They had not consulted until about 31 August, in the second week of the nationwide listening tour that I went on, and I went to every state and every territory. I went to the capital cities, I went to the regional centres, and I listened. That's what consulting is all about. It's listening to veterans. And there were hundreds upon hundreds of them. This is why standing and sessional orders need to be suspended. This is why this parliament needs to pause. And this is why this prime minister needs to act.

The media release continues:

We have been listening carefully and today, the Government is taking the proposed $5,000 threshold off the table.

Tony Pasin

Still won't call it a cap!

Michael McCormack

It's a cap. It's a threshold. It's a limit. It doesn't matter what it is. It's an insult to our veterans. It's a betrayal to their service. It is a disgrace. Then it says:

We will engage with the veteran and provider community on how we can continue to deliver on the objective of achieving better veteran wellbeing outcomes while ensuring integrity of the system.

Well, I can tell you how they can continue to deliver on the objective of achieving better veteran wellbeing—it's by sacking the minister! That's what the Prime Minister has to do. He has to get a new veterans' affairs and defence personnel minister, and the new minister must be placed around the cabinet table so that, when Labor decide that they are going to, once again, look at the service and the sacrifice of our veterans, we can have a minister who can bang the table and say: 'No, no, no, Prime Minister, that's not going to happen. Our veterans deserve better.'

Our veterans have deserved better than what they've been served up in recent months and years. There was the limitation on medallic recognition. There was the Invictus Games funding that was taken away. There was the Doug and Kaye Baird travel—just a few thousand dollars to go around the country and talk about the legacy of Corporal Cameron Baird VC, MG, a posthumously awarded Victoria Cross recipient, one of the bravest of the brave. And this minister couldn't find it in his heart of hearts to give his parents a few thousand dollars so that they could possibly talk to schools and possibly talk to RSL sub-branches about the legacy and about the importance of serving this nation—no more important thing.

The Prime Minister has one important thing to do today. They've scrapped the cap—well and good. He needs to scrap the minister.

Catherine King

I don't think any of us are going to take lectures from that side of the House. When we came to government, there were veterans languishing, waiting to get access to their entitlements, because you had a deliberate budget policy—

Opposition Members

Opposition members interjecting—

Long debate text truncated.