Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable senator for his question. The War Memorial will be receiving $47.8 million in this budget, up from $40 million in the last Labor budget. We have actually increased funding for Australian schoolchildren to come to the War Memorial to experience the most magnificent of our institutions.

What you need to understand is that I did not do this with any joy, but we have some very big decisions to make in relation to this nation over the next four and 10 years. One of those is: how is this nation going to respond to the 71,500 young men and women who have served this nation overseas in the last 20 years? You may well be prepared to sit back and let this nation do to them what we did post-Vietnam, but I, most assuredly, am not prepared to do so. (Time expired)