The Hon. Danna Vale MP  Minister for Veterans' Affairs   Speech  2 March, 2004



The Hon Danna Vale MP  Minister for Veterans’ Affairs

Response to the Clarke Committee Report on Veterans' Entitlements  Statement by the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the Hon Danna Vale, MP

Today the Australian Government announced its response to the Report of the Review of  Veterans' Entitlements - the Clarke Report.

I established the Clarke Committee to honour the Government's election commitment to  an independent review of anomalies in veterans' entitlements and the level of benefits and  support to veterans receiving the disability pension.

Since the report was published, the Government has thoroughly considered its  recommendations and acknowledged a range of views expressed by veterans and ex-service organisations, our Defence and Veterans' Affairs Committee and our party room.  The report, and the Government response, have been subject to intense scrutiny.

I thank the members of the Review Committee - His Honour, Mr Justice Clarke, Air  Marshal Doug Riding, Dr David Rosalky, and their Secretariat, the many veterans and  organisations that made submissions to the review, and the wider veteran community for

its interest and support.

This Government has placed a high priority on meeting our obligations to those who  serve in the defence of Australia.

Since coming to office in 1996, we have increased spending on Veterans' Affairs from  $6.4 billion to $10 billion in the federal Budget for 2003-04.

Much of this increased spending has been due to the Government's recognition of the  growing and changing needs of Australia's veterans, war widows and widowers as they  become older.

This is demonstrated by growth in veterans' health spending, where Government funding  has increased from $1.7 billion in 1996 to a record $4.1 billion this year.

We have worked to meet the needs of our ageing veteran community, by:

Ã¢ÂÂ¢ extending the Gold Card to Australian veterans aged over 70 years with  Qualifying Service;   Ã¢ÂÂ¢ introducing veteran partnering contracts with private hospitals to broaden the  availability of quality hospital care; and   Ã¢ÂÂ¢ helping veterans and war widows to continue living at home through programs

such as Home Front and Veterans' Home Care.

We also have met our commitment to the health of younger veterans and their families by  our Government's response to the Vietnam Veterans' Health Study.

Our aim is to maintain and protect the central services and benefits that veterans value so  highly and to continue to address those areas of greatest need, in consultation with the ex-service community.

The Clarke Report is the Government's second major review in the Veterans' Affairs  portfolio to be brought to the Parliament.

The first - the Mohr Review - resulted in recognition and increased entitlements for a  significant number of Australian service personnel who served in South-East Asia  between 1955 and 1975, including more than 2, 600 members of the Far East Strategic  Reserve.

Last year the Government introduced the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Bills  into the House.

These Bills are the Government's detailed response to the findings of the inquiry into the  Black Hawk disaster and the recommendations of the Tanzer Review of Military  Compensation.

They were developed with extensive consultation with the veteran and defence force  communities and, I am pleased to say, were passed by the House and are now before the  Senate.

The Bills bring together the best elements of the Military Compensation Scheme and the  Veterans' Entitlements Act to create a single scheme for all Australian Defence Force  members who are injured or who lose their lives during future service.

In keeping with these initiatives, the Government's response to the Clarke Review also  will benefit the veteran community.

We have carefully worked our way through the Committee's 109 recommendations to a  response that maintains Australia's fair and consistent repatriation system.

The Government has accepted some recommendations and rejected others.

The Government will be providing an additional $267 million over the next five years to  implement the recommendations that we have accepted.

The recommendations can be usefully grouped into five broad areas:

1. service eligibility;   2. access to the Gold Card;   3. benefits for Totally and Permanently Incapacitated (TPI) and disability benefit  recipients;

4. rehabilitation; and   5. other measures.

I shall address each of these themes in turn and I have attached the Government's  response to each of the 109 recommendations.

Service Eligibility

Perhaps the most fundamental issue before the Committee was the issue of service  eligibility. Sixty-five of the 109 recommendations within the report relate to this issue.

In all, 38 of the 65 recommendations on eligibility suggested no change to the current  provisions under the VEA. We have accepted these recommendations.

The type of service a veteran has rendered is at the centre of the veterans' entitlements  system and accounts for differences in benefits and services received by individuals  across the veteran community.

Traditionally, Australia has provided a special level of benefit for veterans with  Qualifying Service - that is, those who have faced the risk of personal harm from an  enemy - as opposed to Operational Service.

Today, the concept of Qualifying Service has been replaced by Warlike Service, defined  as operations where the application of force is authorised for specific military objectives  and where there is an expectation of casualties.

In the current system, such entitlements include access to the service pension at age 60  and free health care provided through the Gold Card at age 70.

I say, quite clearly, this Government will protect the integrity of Qualifying Service to  continue to give special recognition - and benefits - to those who serve their country at  risk of personal injury or death from an armed enemy.

So we endorse and accept the Committee's recommendation that there be no change in  the statutory test for Qualifying Service.

However, we reject the Committee's view that the 'incurred danger test' has been  interpreted too narrowly by the courts and administrators.

Public support and confidence in the generosity of our Repatriation System depends on  the 'incurred danger test' remaining objective. We would create anomalies if we were to  confuse a state of readiness, or presence in a former enemy's territory, with the real and  tangible risks of facing an armed and hostile enemy.

The Government therefore does not accept the Committee's recommendations for an  extension of Qualifying Service for certain service in Northern Australia during World  War II and in the British Commonwealth Occupational Forces.

The Government accepts the recommendation to extend Qualifying Service to aircrew of  No 2 Squadron RAAF, who served on the Malay-Thai border between 1962 and 1966.

The Government also accepts the Committee's recommendation to extend Operational  Service, the equivalent of Non-Warlike Service, to members of the RAAF directly  involved in the Berlin Airlift.

The Government also accepts that Operational Service eligibility be extended wherever  Qualifying Service has been recognised.

The immediate beneficiaries of this decision are the small group of minesweeping  personnel who have Qualifying Service under the VEA but not Operational Service.

Extension of Operational Service will give them access to the disability pension.

The Government accepts the Committee's recommendation to extend an ex-gratia  payment of $25,000 to all surviving prisoners of war held captive during the Korean War,

or their widows or widowers, who were alive on 1 July 2003. This is in recognition of the  extremely inhumane conditions they endured.

The Government has rejected the Committee's recommendations relating to British  Commonwealth and Allied (BCAL) Veterans.

These recommendations would significantly change the firmly established principle that  each BCAL country maintains responsibility for its own veterans.

The recommendations also would extend benefits to BCAL veterans which are not  available to some Australian veterans with similar service. Further, acceptance would  grant Qualifying Service to some BCAL veterans without them meeting the incurred  danger test required of other BCAL veterans.

The Government will respond positively to the needs of those affected by the British  Atomic Tests programme when the outcomes of the Australian Participants in the British  Nuclear Test Programme - Cancer Incidence and Mortality Study, are published later in  the year.

The Government also recognises that today's military forces are concerned that personnel  deployed on operations to meet the Government's national security objectives have such  service properly classified. Such classification needs to be based on the extent to which  ADF members are exposed to danger.

Hazardous training for any Defence personnel is best remunerated in base pay and  conditions and service allowances.

The Government is reviewing the criteria for determining classification of current service  and deployments.

Access to Gold Card

The Clarke Committee made 10 recommendations in relation to access to the Gold Card.

The Gold Card is highly valued by the veteran community, offering access to free  comprehensive health care for eligible veterans, including medical and hospital treatment,  allied health care, community nursing and support at home through Veterans' Home Care.

Currently, more than 273,000 members of the veteran community hold a Gold Card.

Many veterans have received the Gold Card on the basis of their health needs as  determined by their level of disability.

For example, the Gold Card is issued to all veterans receiving the Disability Pension at or  above 100 per cent of the General Rate, including the TPI pension, the Intermediate Rate  and the Extreme Disablement Adjustment.

The Gold Card also is provided to a veteran who receives the Disability Pension at or  above 50 per cent of the General Rate, and who also is receiving any amount of the  Service Pension.

As a result of initiatives in 1999 and 2002, the Government has extended the Gold Card  to all Australian veterans and mariners aged 70 years or over who have Qualifying or  Warlike Service from any conflict.

Ex-prisoners of war also receive the Gold Card, as do war widows and widowers, who  are compensated for the loss of their partners as a result of their service.

The Committee received many submissions urging further extension of the Gold Card to  different groups.

The Government has accepted all of the Committee's recommendations that there be no  further extensions of the Gold Card.

The Government has already rejected the Committee's recommendation that future Gold  Card entitlement be means tested. A benefit granted in recognition of incurring danger  from an enemy should not discriminate among veterans on the basis of wealth or income.

TPI and Disability Benefits

A range of submissions addressed the adequacy of benefits and support available to  Totally & Permanently Incapacitated and other veteran disability benefit recipients.

There has been considerable public questioning of the merits of the Committee's  recommendations for a fundamental restructuring of TPI and veteran disability benefits.

The Government does not accept the model favoured by the Committee but instead  addresses the key issues of concern to veterans, that is, the treatment of the disability  pension at Centrelink and indexation arrangements.

From September this year, we shall introduce a Defence Force Income Support  Allowance, to be paid by the Department of Veterans' Affairs to eligible veterans  receiving income support from Centrelink.

The allowance will eliminate the difference between a veteran's Centrelink benefit and  the amount they would receive if their disability pension was assessed under the  Veterans' Entitlements Act.

More than 19,000 disability pensioners who receive their income support from Centrelink  will benefit from this change and on average will receive an additional $40 a fortnight.

However, veterans in need, such as a single TPI recipient on an aged pension with no  other income, will be eligible to receive an additional $257.60 a fortnight.

This would take the total amount of financial assistance provided through income support  and the TPI pension to a single veteran who earns no other income to $1,215.40 a  fortnight.

This figure does not include the value of pharmaceutical and other allowances, nor the  cost of health care provided by the Gold Card.

On adequacy, for those with Qualifying Service, the Clarke Committee concluded that  the TPI benefit package was broadly adequate over the veteran's lifetime.

The total benefit of TPI pension, combined with maximum service pension, currently  equates to 91 per cent of post-tax Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE) for a  single veteran and 109 per cent for a couple.

Of course, this will now also be true for those veterans without Qualifying Service who  receive income support from Centrelink, who will now receive the Defence Force Income  Support Allowance.

From March 2004 the portion of disability pension above the general rate will be indexed  to MTAWE in a similar fashion to the service pension. The Government considers it fair  that those veterans who can no longer work because of their service related disabilities  have the economic loss component of their disability pension maintained in line with a  wage index.

Rehabilitation

The Committee emphasised the importance of rehabilitation for veterans with accepted  disabilities. However, the Government rejects the recommendations for compulsory  rehabilitation under the VEA.

No veteran will be forced to participate in rehabilitation under the VEA.

However, the Government, will continue to promote existing programs, including the  Veterans' Vocational Rehabilitation Program, Heart Health and the Men's Health Peer  Education Project, which have been warmly welcomed by many veterans.

The Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Bills before the Senate include a strong  rehabilitation focus.

This emphasis ensures that after injury or illness people are assisted to pursue all options  which may assist them and their families.

The guidelines for rehabilitation under the new Scheme will be developed in close  consultation with veteran and defence force organisations.

The Government will remain open to new ideas that the ex-service community may wish  to suggest that would assist those who may wish to pursue rehabilitation under the VEA.

Other measures

Some 11,000 war widows and widowers will receive an increase in their income support  payments as a result of the Government's decision to pay rent assistance in addition to the  ceiling rate of income support supplement.

This will mean up to an additional $94.40 a fortnight for eligible war widows and builds  on the Government's action in lifting the ceiling rate of the income support supplement in  2002.

The Committee's recommendation for an increased contribution towards funeral costs has  been accepted. The maximum funeral benefit will be increased from $572 to $1 000.

Our Government has committed an additional $267 million over the next five years to  address concerns raised by the veteran community during the review.

I take this opportunity to again thank those members of the ex-service community for  their important contribution to this review process.



