David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am particularly proud to speak on the Defence Force Retirement Benefits Legislation Amendment (Fair Indexation) Bill 2014 this evening, because this legislation really goes to values and priorities. What this legislation says very clearly is that the government places a very high priority on those who have served us in the military.

We all know that the financial situation the government is confronted with is a very difficult one due to six years of flagrant mismanagement by those opposite. We do find ourselves in a very difficult financial situation. But the government made a very firm commitment back in 2010—and reaffirmed in 2013—that the veterans of Australia absolutely deserve fair indexation of their pensions. What the government has done in progressing this legislation is to keep faith with that commitment.

It is entirely appropriate because people who serve our military are often putting themselves at risk. They are often in dangerous situations and, by signing up in the first place, they are certainly accepting that potential eventuality. Most of us do not do that. Most of us do not serve in the military and most of us in our day-to-day jobs do not take any physical risk—we do not put ourselves at risk in that way. I know that in this job I do not do that, and I have not in previous jobs either, but the men and women of our military do that very frequently. That above all makes them, as a group, the greatest Australians, because in times of war and peace they are charged with our protection and security. We should always place the service that they provide us on a pedestal.

You would think it would be self-evident that fair indexation of the military pensions should be supported and that there should not be any discrimination in the way that these increases are calculated relative to those for aged pensioners and others. It is probably fair to say, based on comments from those opposite, that there is a widely held view that that is a fair proposition. The only reason not to do it—and it is not the right reason, but it is the only potential excuse—is that you have not got the money and you cannot afford the cost.

What we saw under six years of Labor was such extraordinary financial mismanagement that Labor was willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars—billions of dollars—on different programs but could not find the much more modest—though significant—amount required for this indexation arrangement. When you have blown $6½ billion on your lack of border security, when you have spent $100 million because you closed down the live export industry overnight and when you have wasted literally billions of dollars on the tragic pink batts program, money is tight.

Labor, in failing to provide this indexation in those six years, really got its priorities all mixed up. It could find funds for all sorts of extraordinary government programs—very poorly managed programs with no operational or implementational skill whatsoever—but it could not find the money to do something as fundamentally right as indexing military pensions in a similar manner to age pensions. We said we would do that because it is the right thing to do. We said it consistently over a number of years. We even introduced legislation in the previous parliament to try to make it happen. Now that we are a government, we are able to do it. I am proud to speak in favour of this legislation and I commend it to the House.

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