Radio Interview - 4BC Brisbane Radio - Drive with Gary Hargraves

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
4BC BRISBANE RADIO
DRIVE WITH GARY HARGRAVES
WEDNESDAY, 22 MAY 2024

SUBJECTS: Veterans and Claims Processing.

HOST, GARY HARGRAVES: The bloke responsible is the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Matt Keogh. He joins me. Minister, thank you for your time and more strength to your arm if you can sort this out.

MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL, MATT KEOGH:  Well, great to be with you, Gary. And look, it was certainly a huge problem that we inherited. You mentioned those claims that hadn't even been looked at by somebody. And when we came to government, there was about nearly 42,000 of those. And we made a commitment and we've delivered on that of employing 500 additional staff in the Department because that's what it took. The Department needed resources to be able to process these claims, to be able to get through this backlog. Now, claims are being processed, but there are still claims that are in the process of being processed as well. That does take time, but making sure that they're all being looked at. Now if someone puts in a claim, it'll be looked at within 14 days.

GARY HARGRAVES: I've been a minister like you are now, part of the problem I thought, if I could offer this to you, Minister, that a lot of people in the bureaucracy, their first response is, I don't want to make a decision, so I'll say no. And then people have to appeal. Are we putting our veterans through that sort of rubbish? I saw it in the Immigration Department. I hope it's not happening in our Veterans Department.

MINISTER KEOGH: No, no. I mean these people are trained specifically to make these decisions. The issue we've had was over a third of them were labour hire people, and you had a high degree of churn in that workforce, and it takes a long time to get them trained. And so we've added more numbers to the Department. So more people, they're now trained. We've converted labour hire into being actual public servants, so we're able to retain them to do this difficult and complex work. And that's meant now. All of the claims that have not been looked at, those 42,000 have been assessed or are currently being assessed, and we've brought down the time that it takes to do those assessments. Compared to this time last year, we're now doing those two months quicker than it used to happen before, and we're continuing to try and bring that down. And what you see in the Budget now, in terms of the cost of providing benefits to veterans and that increasing cost, is because we've ingested all of these claims that we're now looking at and processing, and that means veterans are costing more, but importantly, that means they're getting what they deserve, and that's the really important part.

GARY HARGRAVES: I agree 100 per cent because my understanding, having been around that veteran space, as a former member of parliament and all of that, I just know that it was always a sort of a bipartisan approach that we had to look after our veterans, that you had expert committees telling you what the priorities were and all that sort of stuff, but this is not just that. This now down to the fact that the processing times blew out. There was a volume of veterans that needed to be looked after, and we were just leaving them hanging there. It's just not right.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, it's certainly been a cause for a high degree of anxiety across the entire veteran community as you would well understand. And it's something that the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide zeroed in on in their Interim Report that they handed down in 2022. And critical recommendations there were to make sure the Department was properly resourced. And that's what we've been getting about doing. And you see that in the almost half a billion dollars of additional funding to the Department to be able to do its work that was in this Budget just handed down as well as that increase in the amount of money that will be flowing to veterans in the forms of pensions, compensation and health support that they need. And frankly, they deserve to have and they should have been able to get access to that sooner. We shouldn't have had a backlog develop, but it did. And what I've been doing is getting about working with the Department to make sure it's properly resourced and to make sure we can get through that backlog, which we've done. And now we're processing all of those claims to make sure veterans get what they deserve.

GARY HARGRAVES: And what cohort are we dealing with? We're dealing with people out of Afghanistan in particular, I imagine, but I could be wrong.

MINISTER KEOGH: The vast majority are that cohort. That's right. So we're talking about people that have served really actually from East Timor onwards. So you're talking about from the mid to late 90s all the way through to now. That's the vast majority by number. But there are still Vietnam veterans. There are still other veterans that have served since then and even some before that have claims that or conditions that exacerbate that get worse where they need additional assistance or are still they access medical services and all of that's part of what we're providing. And it's just terrible if that those claims, you know, especially if the condition gets worse, or you've got a new condition that's risen, whether that's because you've just recently finished service or you finished your service 50 years ago, you want to be able to get that process by the Department quickly. So you can get the support that you need. And that's been something that's been lacking. And we're trying to bring down those processing times as quickly as we can and make sure that those supports are made available to veterans as they need them.

GARY HARGRAVES: You know, Minister, I feel a sense of personal shame as a member of parliament and indeed minister in government that sent people into harm's way in our name that we've done this, that this is allowed to happen. So it's important to be cleaned up. I've heard the terminology used in the past. And I know that, you know, Andrew Gee, the former Veterans Minister threatened to resign if there wasn't more money made available. It was back what, 60,000 unallocated cases. I mean, I've seen and watched this happen. But I've heard this term about delayed, deny and die that basically make people wait out. I hear the same thing said about aged care and other places as well. But our veterans deserve extra special treatment in my view.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, certainly that's a phrase that some in the veteran community use and I can understand given their frustration that the length of time it's taken either even for their claims just to be looked at, let alone actually have the assessment undertaken on their claim that that would generate that sort of response. And the Royal Commission zeroed in on these issues and the sort of anxiety and mental health concerns that it was being exacerbated by these delays. So making sure that we've been able to properly resource the Department to get through this. Now, there's still a way to go. It does take some time as you discussed before to process these claims. And of course, when they've been hanging around for a while, you need to get updated medical reports, you need to get update lifestyle questionnaires, you need to get updated information, which then adds time again. So the quicker a claim can be start being processed by the Department, the more relevant the information provided already is we now have a process that pre scans someone looks at each claim and it comes in to check, okay, is all the information we need to make a decision here so that then it can go straight to a decision maker and a decision be made instead of things bouncing backwards and forwards, getting more information and taking up the time resources of the delegates that make the decisions themselves.

GARY HARGRAVES: The veterans being trusted, if they give you the evidence, are they being trusted? Because I mean, people like Barnaby Joyce, the Shadow says that he thinks it's going from a backlog pile to a processing pile that makes it looks like the backlog's being cleared. But in fact, the time frames are getting longer and longer. What's your response to that?

MINISTER KEOGH: Yeah, so this is a really important part of the process change that we've made is making sure that we're screening those claims as soon as they come in. So if there is anything missing, because sometimes what we've seen because of these backlogs, what was happening was people wanted to get themselves in the queue. And so they'd put in a claim without all of the necessary medical evidence having been finalized yet. And that's understandable in those circumstances. But now that we're able to process those claims and get them starting to be looked at, as soon as they come into the Department, it means that those gaps obviously need to be closed really quickly. So that's why we've got people looking at each claim when they come in, make sure that all the medical reports that are required, that'll be from the veterans doctors or the veterans specialists. That's fine. No issue with that. We can make sure that they're current. They weren’t from years and years ago. And sometimes it takes time getting information out of Defence, but we've improved a lot of that as well, so that we can get these claims processed quickly.

GARY HARGRAVES: Yeah, well, I just, as I said at the beginning, more strength to your arm if you can fix this up. I mean, the Veterans Entitlement Act, there's some reforms that you're talking about there as well.

MINISTER KEOGH: We are. Yep, we're looking to move to one single piece of legislation going forward. We hope to have these reforms into the Parliament shortly. It will mean that all claims post 1 July 2026 would be under the what's called the MRCA, the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act. That's the 21st century piece of legislation. Any new claims would come under that. And what's really important about that is with only one piece of legislation, whereas at the moment, some veterans can fall under all three. It's easier to know what they're entitled to. It's easier for advocates to assist them with their claims, and it's quicker for the Department to process those claims. So that's about delivering a harmonised system for veterans, but also a simpler one so people can get access to what they need more quickly.

GARY HARGRAVES: Tell me, Minister, how angry are you that we're in this position? Because if you've got Defence who are holding up this and slowing this down, you've got this kind of mess to clean up. This must affect you personally. I've been out of the Parliament for, I don't know, 15 years or whatever it's been, 17 years and time goes by very quickly. I'm far healthier than I was when I was in the Parliament. But Minister, I'm angry about it. So you must be furious.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, it's certainly a really shocking circumstance to come across when you become a minister and to see the scope and size of this sort of backlog on what it means for individual veterans at a really personal level for them. Their lived experience of this has not been great at all. And as you would imagine, and you know, this is a former minister, when you're engaging with stakeholders, when you're talking to veterans, they're very clear with you about the impact that it's having on them. And so in that context, it's been really shocking to come across a huge frustration to see what has happened over time here with the resourcing of the Department. But the key thing for me has been focused on, okay, how do we fix this? How do we make sure that we not just apply the additional resources that are needed, but that they are operating the most in the most efficient way and we've got good coordination between departments as well, so that we can get on with what is the most important thing, which is making sure that veterans get what they need and deserve.

GARY HARGRAVES: As I said, no politics in Veterans Affairs, they just should be given the assistance and the recognition they deserve. Matt Keogh, good to talk to you, Minister, thank you for your time. 

MINISTER KEOGH: Great to be with you. Thanks, Gary.

END

Open Arms – Veterans & Families Counselling provides 24/7 free confidential crisis support for current and ex-serving ADF personnel and their families on 1800 011 046 or the Open Arms website. Safe Zone Support provides anonymous counselling on 1800 142 072. Defence All-Hours Support Line provides support for ADF personnel on 1800 628 036 or the Defence Health Portal. Defence Member and Family Helpline provides support for Defence families on 1800 624 608