By Tanya Steele
RSLs nationwide have welcomed news of funding allocated to the 2023-34 federal budget and one sub-branch president calling its a good start.
“It’ll go a long way to improving the backlog of claims and put some investment into suicide prevention and training programmes,” Colette Shaw, President of the Healesville sub-branch, said.
The federal government has announced some additional funding to its defence personnel, veterans and their families with $64.1 million in additional resourcing allocated in the federal budget for 2023–24 and $2 million over two years to continue DVA’s mental health literacy and suicide intervention training program.
The budget report highlighted that improving the administration of the claims system is also a priority, with a $254.1 million investment listed to modernise and sustain ICT systems.
This was a result of recommendations from the interim report from the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide.
The report focused on the identification of systemic problems and solutions to suicide and suicidality among serving and ex-serving ADF members and was tabled in Parliament in August 2022.
“This budget is addressing some of those recommendations, which includes investing more money into the whole DVA, our local veterans welcome what the federal government’s doing with their investment,” Ms Shaw said.
The government has also pledged to provide an additional $4.8 billion in funding for veterans’ compensation and support payments to meet future expected claims.
The Royal Commission report pointed to other issues in the Department of Veteran’s Affairs claims process, including the difficulty and complexity of the claims systems, a massive backlog of claims and the inability of serving and ex-serving members and their families to access information about themselves and their loved ones.
Ms Shaw said she hopes the proposed funding will mean veterans will get their claims approved and processed a lot faster and that positive changes can continue for the veterans.
“So hopefully, there’ll be further changes and further policies implemented down the track, but this is definitely a good start to supporting our veterans,” Ms Shaw said.
