Media Release

We wish to draw your attention to a disgraceful and sneaky display of party games during Parliament on the very serious issue of pensions and other entitlements for those who defend our nation.

Bob voted against a Coalition motion that pretended to support military superannuation pensions while actually depriving them of vital services being offered under the Veterans Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill 2012.

The Opposition’s amendment to the Bill asked the House not to move the Veterans Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill 2012 until it introduced indexed military superannuation pensions.

Had Bob voted with and helped pass the Opposition amendment, it would have resulted in the halting of the Veterans Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill 2012, depriving veterans of the much-needed entitlements. However Bob voted against the Opposition amendment, and the Bill was subsequently passed without division.

Make no mistake, Bob is all for fair indexation of the pensions and will continue to fight tenaciously for that – without the politicking or party games. The Office of the Federal Member for Kennedy have commenced discussions with leading defence associations to draft legislation to deliver the fair indexation of pensions that veterans so desperately require and have for many years fought in vain for.

Please find below a transcript from Hansard of Bob’s speech on the Bill to the House today, including exchanges with the Opposition spokesman and Government minister for context.

Indexation of veterans’ pensions is an issue that Bob’s electorate offices quite rightly receive frequent and regular representations on, and we would gratefully appreciate any assistance you can offer in disseminating this information for our nation’s defence personnel.

 

BILLS

Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill 2012

Second Reading

Debate resumed on the motion:

That this bill be now read a second time.

to which the following amendment was moved:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“the House declines to consider this bill until such time as the Government introduces legislation to index military superannuation pensions for Defence Forces Retirement Benefit (DFRB) Scheme members and Defence Force Retirement and Death Benefits (DFRDB) Scheme members aged 55 and over in the same manner as aged and service pensions are currently indexed.”

...

Mr Katter: Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Some of us do want to know whether by voting for the opposition's amendment...

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs D'Ath): Order! What is you point of order? The member for Kennedy will get his time to speak shortly.

Mr Katter: ...will negate all the benefits that are in here.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Paterson has the call.

Mr BALDWIN: This is an unusual interjection from a preposterous fool.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Paterson will take his seat. The minister?

Mr Snowdon: I ask the member to withdraw that statement.

Mr BALDWIN: I will withdraw, for the expediency of the House. But the member for Denison, back in October 2011, also spoke in favour of this measure.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member for Paterson will resume his seat for a moment. The member for Kennedy?

Mr Katter: Madam Deputy Speaker, as I understand it, that gratuitous insult was directed at me, and I want an apology.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has been withdrawn, as has been requested by the House.

Mr Katter interjecting—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Kennedy will get his time to speak very shortly.

...

Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (09:47): We come in this place to debate, to reach an intelligent consensus. I asked the opposition spokesman a reasonable question. And I got by way of reply a gratuitous insult. Let him reflect upon whether this place is a place where we have intelligent debate or whether it is a name-calling political party escapade.

Mr Baldwin interjecting—

Mr KATTER: I'm not grandstanding; you're the one who grandstanded. Madam Deputy Speaker, would you shut him up please, so I can continue with my speech? Let me say that, when a minister or an opposition spokesman is putting forward a proposition that we vote for his proposal, it is reasonable for us, because we have not been able to get it out of his office, to ask: 'What are the implications of the amendment he is moving? Because, as I understand it—and I am more than happy to take the interjections from the opposition spokesman. The question that I asked the opposition was, as we understand it, your amendment throws out all these benefits. That is the question I ask. Would someone in the opposition like to answer that?

Mr Robert interjecting—

Mr Snowdon: You've got no right to speak.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Point of order?

Mr Robert: I am simply responding as the opposition spokesman in this area.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, the member does not have the call; the member for Kennedy has the call.

Mr KATTER: Madam Deputy Speaker, we are simply asking these people—because they are not going to tell us, obviously; we ask for some information and we can't get it off them. But, as we understand the implications of what they are doing, these benefits that are needed and wanted will not flow if the opposition gets their way. What you are looking at here is a re-run of the Malaysia solution—'Oh, no; if we get a solution then that will not be to our political benefit'.

It would be nice if they thought a little bit about the benefit to their country, and the servicemen. Quite frankly, if you are going to throw these benefits out, one would have to question your sincerity.

Mr Robert: Madam Deputy Speaker, a point of order on relevance: you cannot equate it with the Malaysia solution. Secondly, I misspoke—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs D'Ath): No. You have made your point of relevance. I am not going to allow the member for Fadden to enter into debate.

Mr KATTER: I volunteered to go to Indonesia as a lad of 18. We had to give out three telephone numbers, and we were on 24-hour call-up to go over there. I want to make the point that I do not think I was being very patriotic; I just assumed everyone was going. My logic at the time was that it was better to get in first. So I do not want to make out that I was a hero, because I most certainly was not.

My electorate takes in Townsville and has for a long time, so I am very familiar with the biggest Army base in Australia and the people who man that Army base. The family breakdowns in the Army are horrifically higher than in any other areas in Australian society. Mining is another very bad area. Because of fly-in mining, people are away from home all the time, and loneliness creates problems in family relationships. There are forced separations. There is the Child Support Agency, which makes it very easy now for a woman to leave. And then there is a very oppressive regime that falls upon the soldier, because now he has to make child support payments and is left with no money.

So when you go into the Army there is a very grave risk to your family. When you go into the Army you go and fight, and there is a grave risk to your life. We recently had probably one of the most moving events in North Queensland's history in the last 20 or 30 years: Ben Chuck's funeral. He was from a very prominent and well loved family up on the Atherton Tablelands. The Prime Minister—God bless her—and the Leader of the Opposition—God bless him—both turned up to honour a man who had given his life for his country. If you knew that family, you would never doubt for a moment that—unlike me, who joined up because everyone was joining up, not for the best of reasons—they really are very patriotic people. Ben was a very, very patriotic person. My chief of staff was at school with Ben. You would never doubt their patriotism. And they made that point that his death will not be used as an argument with respect to Afghanistan. It is the decision of our country to be there, and it is our patriotic duty to stand by our country. That is the line they took—and I hope I am interpreting that correctly.

Service men and women are just very patriotic people. They risk their life, they risk their family—out of all proportion to anyone else in our society. And because of these factors, particularly the marriage one, we have a very high attrition rate in the Army. People start thinking about it and then decide they do not want to be in the Army, so we lose people with very great attributes that our country simply cannot afford to lose. When the opposition spokesman spent his time passing gratuitous insults to me and wasting three or four minutes of his speech time—rather stupidly, I thought—I was thinking: 'Well, you were there for 12 years. If this was so dreadful and horrific and terrible, why didn't you do something about it in the 12 years you were there, as the government of Australia?' I, amongst many others, including some of your own members, were screaming for action on the indexation issue with respect to our soldiers. You stand here in a position of colossal hypocrisy, because you were there for 12 years and you did nothing about it. If these were such burning questions, were you just a bunch of numbskulls who did not understand it or were you very callous people who did not even bother about it?

The government and the opposition agree, as do the cross benchers, although I speak for myself and not for them, that these are good moves. The people in the Army I have spoken to have advised that these are very good little things. The pharmaceuticals is one. The travel is another. It sounds like a small thing but it is not. It is 20 bucks to get a taxi to go anywhere these days, and $20 is a hell of a lot of money to a veteran on a pension. To be able to do that afterwards is very important, because you get sick and you cannot ring up and get permission in a time frame that is acceptable. Also, the bereavement payment is a very good thing. Also, clean energy. But I am not going to go through them all as other members have already done so. There are a lot of good things here.

The second reason we will be voting for this is that as we understand it—I cannot get any sense out of the opposition on this—if we vote for the opposition's amendment all of this is lost. I cannot see any purpose in losing all of this.

Mr Neville: That's not right, Bob.

Mr KATTER: The honourable member said that that is not right. Well I wish somebody on his side would explain it to us. If people are of limited ability intellectually they do not like taking interjections. I understand that. But if you are a spokesman—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs D'Ath): Order! The member for Kennedy will resume his seat. The member for Fadden on a point of order.

Mr Robert: Standing order 90 requires that a member not impugn a motive upon another member. The member for Kennedy cannot say of another member that they have limited intellectual abilities.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Are you saying that you have been personally—

Mr Robert: No, I am stating that he cannot impugn the other member he was speaking about.

Mr KATTER: I retract that.

Mr Robert: Thank you, sir.

Mr KATTER: I apologise for saying 'limited intellectual abilities'.

There are three options, and I think that most people probably understand this. It can be indexed on male average weekly earnings, 27.7 per cent; on the CPI; or on a fairly complex pension benefit arrangement that exists at the present moment. So, there are three different ways it can be indexed. As I understand it, the decision by successive governments—which is a good decision—is that they choose the best of those three for the Australian pensioner. All we are saying is for heaven's sake surely our returned servicemen should get the same treatment.

I ask the government: why wouldn't you do this for these people? I ask the minister again to put this before his government. Other cross benchers and I will be moving legislation along these lines yet again. We plead with you to go down this path. It is not a lot of money. You have cut four thousand million dollars out of the Army budget. Surely you can give back a little bit. But you are losing very valuable personnel at the present moment. These people suffer death on the front line defending the things we believe in, and they have family breakdowns. Really, they should be entitled to a better deal than we in this place are with our indexation arrangements or even, God bless them all, Australia's pensioners. These people should get the best deal of all, but they are not. They are getting a second-rate deal at the present moment.

I strongly agree with the opposition on this. If they did nothing in 12 years at least they are doing something now. As to what their motives are, I am not going to impugn them for that. I am just going to say, 'Good on you, Mr Opposition.' We hope that you continue to fight for the best outcome, which is simply putting them in line with all of the other pensions. I think that is more than warranted.

I can see absolutely no point in depriving our servicemen of these benefits. It would appear to me that the opposition is doing that, and, I hate to say it, but they are doing it for political reasons.

That seems to be the clear and unequivocal interpretation that I can put upon what is happening here. If I am wrong someone can come and explain it to me. I would be quite happy to listen to them.

We thank the government for these changes, but we must emphasise that there is no logic, and there most certainly is no humanity involved, in the continuing position by the government of not accepting the preferable alternative as far as indexation of the pensions goes. It is a point of view that my own party will be hammering continuously and continually. Many of the people in the services are closely associated with us and we most certainly intend to be their champions. I think that every single person here should be their champions but for 12 years the opposition were not, and for three years the government has not been. But we will be the first to congratulate either side if they move forward to a serious indexation of the pensions.

I, like many members here, am very gravely embarrassed by us getting parliamentarians' indexation through—indexation of a very generous nature—while having to face these people who have risked their lives, risked their families and sacrificed themselves in a very tough occupation for the our sake. I really do think that—unlike myself—a lot of these people act out of patriotism.

Mr SNOWDON (Lingiari—Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, Minister for Indigenous Health and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Centenary of ANZAC) (10:01): I thank all of those who have contributed to this debate. I am not sure that I can agree with everyone, obviously, because, as the member for Kennedy rightly points out, if the proposal of the opposition were passed it would deprive those potential beneficiaries of the amendments we are putting before the House of those benefits. And that, to me, is just silly. What it highlights is the political stunt that is being pulled here by the opposition to highlight an issue which they have got out in the public domain about their attitude towards DFRDB indexation. I will come to that in a moment.

What we need to do is to concentrate on this bill. The bill, as you would be aware, exempts from income tax, reimbursement made under the Veterans' Pharmaceutical Reimbursement Scheme and the MRCA Pharmaceutical Reimbursement Scheme. The payments are due to commence in the first quarter of 2013, benefiting 50,000 veterans. Why should we deprive those veterans of the benefits that will flow as a result of this legislation? There is absolutely no reason for us to do so. To have this bill high-jacked for a political stunt is, to my mind, something which we should be very concerned about.

There will also be amendments to the Income Tax Assessment Act to make it clear that treatment costs reimbursed under the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Act are exempt from income tax. There were 155,000 claims for reimbursement processed in 2010-11. That is an important element. This will clarify administrative arrangements for the payments of travel expenses under the Veterans' Entitlements Act and the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Act. There will be amendments to the Defence Service Homes Act to ensure that those with operational service as part of Operation DAMASK VI in 1993, are eligible for subsidised home loans and insurance under the act—another important benefit.

This bill will ensure bereavement payments for funeral expenses in respect of indigent veterans or members is exempt income for the purpose of the social security income test. There are amendments to the definition of 'Australia' to authorise clean energy payments under the VEA and MRCA to residents of Norfolk Island. That is important to the residents of Norfolk Island but clearly not important to the opposition. And the bill will provide for more timely provision of special assistance under the VEA and MRCA via legislative instrument, instead of the current arrangements requiring regulation. The bill will ensure that debt recovery provisions will be applicable to all relevant provisions of the VEA, the regulations and any legislative instruments made under the VEA, and amend the MRCA to replace obsolete references to pharmaceutical allowances and telephone allowances.

There are important things. Many of them are small but they are very important to the veteran community and they should not be side-tracked and put off as a result of this stunt by the opposition to try and get us to accept an amendment which would have the House decline to consider the bill. Let's be very clear about this: whilst I appreciate the integrity of some of the debate—and I understand full well the intensity of the debate—I think we need to appreciate a number of points...