Interview, NewsDay, Sky News, Ashleigh Gillon

E&OE transcript
Interview
Sky News

ASHLEIGH GILLON: Welcome back. You are with NewsDay. Well, the new Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh has vowed more help for Australian veterans and is pledging to work on clearing the long waiting list of compensation claims we know has been a real issue. The Minister, Matt Keogh, joins me live now in the Perth studio. Minister, good to see you. Thank you for your time.

MATT KEOGH: Good to be with you.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: Firstly, congratulations on the election result. Your own home seat of Burt, 10 per cent swing – not a bad result as well and your appointment to the ministry, so congratulations.

MATT KEOGH: Thank you.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: And a whole lot of work to do now though. In terms of how important this ministry is to your government, there’s been a lot of criticism that this isn’t a Cabinet portfolio any longer like it was under the Coalition Government. What does that signal to veterans about the importance the Albanese Government places on veterans’ issues?

MATT KEOGH: Well, the portfolio itself has previously been outside of Cabinet and I think what’s really important for veterans and the serving personnel is the results that we get as opposed to where the portfolio is positioned. But in terms of where it is positioned, the senior minister in the defence portfolio is the Deputy Prime Minister. You can’t get really higher representation than that. So, I don’t think that people need to be worried from that point of.

But what is really important is when it comes to the people: Serving personnel, our veterans, their families. As you mentioned, there’s now a backlog of over 60,000 claims. That’s growing. Those are claims from existing serving personnel as well as from veterans, and that backlog really needs to be got down. We made a commitment to 500 additional staff to go into the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to get that backlog down because veterans, quite frankly, deserve to be able to get the support that they need. Their families need that too. They deserve to get that as soon as they can. This backlog has blown out completely out of control under the previous government. They completely dropped the ball. So, one of my key focuses is going to be getting that down, getting those 500 people in as soon as we can, getting them trained so we can work through that backlog.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: So, when will the backlog be cleared? Have you given the department a deadline? What are you working towards?

MATT KEOGH: I haven’t been able to work through a deadline yet because we’ve got to work on how do we get those 500 people in as soon as possible? It’s something I’m meeting with the department about this week because we know we need to make it happen quickly. They’ve already started a recruitment process so that’s good. The quicker we can get these people in, the quicker we can get that backlog down. As I said, it’s not just the people that have left service. It’s people in service now who also need to have some of their claims processed as well. It’s really important that we put them first, that we put veterans first - their families, because they are the ones that go through the process with them. It’s not just the personnel that sign up to join our Defence Force. Their families come along for that ride regardless as well, and all of the things that come with that, and we do want to make sure they are all supported. It’s really important.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: You’ve come in midway through this royal commission looking at defence and veterans’ suicides. As minister, will you commit to implementing all of the recommendations from that royal commission?

MATT KEOGH: Obviously I need to see the actual recommendations that come out, but the reason that we pushed so hard for a royal commission was to make sure that we do get the expert views and recommendations back to us now in government to be able to move forward with those sorts of recommendations. It’s why we have made –

ASHLEIGH GILLON: Are there things that you can do already, that you don’t need to wait –

MATT KEOGH: There are things that we are doing. There’s the 500 additional staff to get through that backlog. There’s the working with Defence families and serving personnel about what can we do about making sure that their experience - whilst they’re in the force, but also as they transition out, getting employment, really important. If you want to make sure that we guarantee success for people when they leave the Defence Force, if they’re able to walk into a job, that makes a big difference. So, working – we’ve made a commitment to make it more – educate business so that they know the benefit of employing a veteran. Sometimes it’s not immediately apparent the great skills that someone coming out of our Defence Force bring to a business, coming into a job. And so, we want to make sure businesses understand that. We want to make sure there’s a better pathway of transition for our – in supporting the actual veterans as they leave the Defence Force into getting that employment as well, because that’s a key way to help them as they progress.

Housing is another one. We’ve made a commitment an extra $60 million to support defence housing. That’s important for people in defence, but making sure they’ve got access to the housing means they’re better set up for when they leave as well. So, financial supports, making sure that they feel that they’ve got that confidence when they leave the Defence Force helps with tackling these issues that are addressed by the royal commission.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: Are you worried that there are deep systemic cultural problems within the Defence Force that are leading to a lot of these issues that veterans are then having down the track?

MATT KEOGH: It’s certainly clear that we see that the rate of suicides in veterans is significantly higher than the rate across the broader population. So, that tells you that there’s clearly something going on for veterans that is causing an additional burden which is resulting in that higher rate of suicide. Whether that’s an issue within Defence or an issue about how we support veterans when they leave Defence, that’s key to what the royal commission will be able to tell us.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: I’m keen for your thoughts on energy prices, gas policy, something I know as a Western Australian you’ve looked at over the years. There’s been a lot of talk about the WA gas reservation policy. Would you like to see that extended nationally? Would that be a good idea to have across the country?

MATT KEOGH: Everything’s on the table. One of the things you’ve got to appreciate is we’ve had that defence – sorry, that gas reservation policy in Western Australia for over a decade now, and what that has meant is that we’re now reaping that benefit of making sure we’ve got all that gas reserved. But if you want to do it now at the national level, it takes time to set that up; and we’ve got an acute issue affecting energy prices and gas supply on the east coast of Australia right now. So, certainly we would not rule that out, but we’ve got to look at everything that’s available and working with gas companies and supply up and down the east coast, because we’ve got to deal with the issue right now as well. And setting up a mechanism like a domestic reservation isn’t going to resolve that problem overnight, so that’s why Madeleine King as the Minister for Resources and, of course, Chris Bowen as the Minister for Energy are looking at all the options on the table.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: When you talk about options on the table, the former WA Premier, Colin Barnett, has a few ideas that he has been pretty vocal about. One of them is the construction of a cross-continental gas pipeline. Is that a feasible idea? Could that be a long-term solution?

MATT KEOGH: I think that actually creates a lot of problems. So, putting aside the fact that – well, just think about how long it would take to practically build that sort of pipeline and the physical distance, just from an economics point of view, you would have to look at does that make more sense or does it make more sense to ship gas around the country, for example?

But the other issue is whether Western Australia really wants to join the national energy market. Western Australia has a completely separate energy market for gas as it does for electricity. That’s an issue for the WA State Government to consider. But I can certainly see why the WA Government wouldn’t necessarily be enamoured by joining itself to the problems that are currently confronting the east coast of Australia.

ASHLEIGH GILLON: Matt Keogh, really appreciate you coming to the studio to speak to us today. Good luck getting around the new portfolio. I look forward to having you on in your new job. Thanks so much.

MATT KEOGH: Absolutely. Thanks, Ash.

END

Media contacts:
Stephanie Mathews (Minister Keogh’s Office): 0407 034 485