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Keith
 Aug 28, 06 - 9:52 PM |
Vietnam Veterans Federation Speaks Out On TPI Payment
From: Keith Tennent To: WA RSL ; VVFA National ; Victorian RSL ; Vic TPI ; TPI Federation ; Tas TPI ; Tas RSL ; SA RSL ; Queensland RSL ; NSW TPI ; NSW RSL ; National RSL ; Capricornia RSL ; Barry Billing ; ACT RSL ; PVA Sec ; RSL Nat President ; ACT TPI ; WA TPI ; PVA Research and Benefits Member ; Qld VVFA ; TVille VVFA ; Victoria VVFA ; VVAA Sunshine Coast ; PVA Pres ; President EDA Cc: Main Vet List ; Parliamentary List ; Ian McPhedran News Ltd ; Paul Dyer Journo News Limited ; Sasha Uzunov Freelance Journo ; Edith Bevan Journo ; Mike Carey SBS ; Paul Cutler SBS ; Hugo Kelly Journo ; Paul Murray ; Alison Rehn Journo ; Qld Courier Mail Editor Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 9:37 PM Subject: LOSS OF VALUE OF THE TPI PENSION From: Graham Walker walkergf@iinet.net.au Sent: Monday, 28 August 2006 11:51 AM Subject: Loss of Value of TPI Pension Attached are three important letters about the past and continuing loss of value of the TPI Pension. The first letter is from the Minister defending his decision not to remedy the situation. The second and third letters are from the VVFA criticising the Minister's letter which was confused, contradictory and full of errors. It seems the government is digging in on this one even though the justice of our requests for change are plain to see. I understand the TPI Federation is thinking of another demonstration outside Parliament House in Canberra for next year. If it goes ahead, it may be something we should support. Regards, Tim McCombe vvfagran@bigpond.net.au ************* The Hon Bruce Billson M P Minister for Veterans' Affairs Minister Assisting the Minister for Defence Federal Member for Dunkley Mr Tim McCombe President Vietnam Veterans' Federation P.O Box 170 GRANVILLE NSW 2142 Dear Mr McCombe Thank you for your letter of 18 May 2006 concerning our recent discussion about indexation of the Special (Totally and Permanently Incapacitated (T&PI)) rate disability pension. As you know, the terminology used in the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 (VEA) relating to disability pension is 'General Rate' or 'Above the General Rate'. The General Rate of disability pension provides compensation for pain and suffering, otherwise referred to as compensation for non-economic loss. The Above General Rate component of the T &PI pension provides compensation for loss of income, or economic loss, to veterans who are unable to undertake paid employment of more than eight hours per week as a result of their war or defence service-related disabilities alone. The T &PI disability pension therefore provides eligible persons with compensation for both economic and non-economic loss. This distinction is also a feature of other legislation administered by my Department. Section 4 of the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (SRCA) defines non-economic loss as: "loss or damage of a non-economic kind suffered by the employee (including pain and suffering, a loss of expectation of life or a loss of the amenities or enjoyment of life) as a result of that injury or impairment and of which the employee is aware. " Non-economic loss is compensated under the SRCA through permanent impairment payments. This Act also provides the choice to institute an action for the damages against the Commonwealth. Economic compensation is provided in the form of incapacity payments related to a person's income level prior to injury. These provisions and distinctions are also reflected in the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004. Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600 Tel: (02) 6277 7820 Fax: (02) 62734140 You would also be aware that there is an exhaustive discussion of these concepts in the Report of the Clarke Review. The Review found that the VEA recognises the same employer-worker relationship as that recognised by the SRCA and other workers' compensation legislation. The legislative basis for indexation of the T &PI pension for General Rate and Above General Rate is provided in section 198 of the VEA. As.you know the Clarke Review observed that "overall, the current special rate disability package is broadly adequate when considered over the veteran's lifetime". It concluded that the "total benefit of special rate payments, including maximum service pension, is currently close to or significantly over after-tax Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTA WE) for a veteran with qualifying service (90 per cent for a single, 115 per cent for a couple), and has remained at this relative level for some years". My Department has recently analysed the current pension rates and compared them with the current MTAWE figure. This comparison has confirmed the Clarke Review conclusion about the special rate disability package. In addition, with the introduction of the Defence Force Income Support Allowance all disability pensioners in identical circumstances, whether they have qualifying service or not, now receive the same amount of income support. The T &PI pension has always been regarded as compensation and for that reason it was excluded from the changed indexation arrangements in 1997. You would appreciate that these changes were introduced primarily for income support payments, not disability pensions. The Government's 2004 decision to index the Above General Rate component in the same way as the maximum single rate of service pension was in fact taken in response to the Clarke Review's examination of the T &PI pension and treatment of its components. The Government has carefully considered both the adequacy of the T &PI pension and its means of indexation to ensure that it is fulfilling its intended purpose of compensating those veterans who suffer loss of income because of their service-related disabilities. Thank you again for writing about your association's concerns. Yours sincerely Bruce Billson .. 6 JUL 2006 ***************** VIETNAM VETERANS’ FEDERATION 8 Mary Street Granville PO Box 170 GRANVILLE NSW 2142, Phone (02) 9682 1788 Fax (02) 9682 6134 Hon Bruce Billson MP Minister for Veterans Affairs Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600 20 August 2006 Dear Bruce, We were sorry to read in your letter of 6 July 2006 that you are neither willing to make up the lost value of the TPI pension nor to take measures to arrest its continuing decline compared with community incomes. The explanations you give for your inaction do nothing to reduce the import of three simple facts. Simple Fact Number 1 In 1997, the Age Pension, Wife Pension, Disability Support Pension, Widow’s Pension, Parenting Payment, Carer Payment, Service Pension, Partner Service Pension, Income Support Pension and the War Widow’s Pension were re-indexed so that they were linked to increases in the average wage or the cost of living, whichever is the greater. The TPI Pension should have been re-indexed along with the other pensions but was not. If it had been re-indexed along with the other pensions, it would now be some $80 a fortnight more. Simple Fact Number 2 The government defines the whole of the TPI pension as ‘income support’ when Centreline assesses how much to deduct from welfare payments. If the Child Support Agency decides to include a veteran’s TPI Pension in its calculations, the government defines the whole of the pension as ‘income’. When the Family Court is calculating the division of property and income, the court defines the whole of the TPI Pension as ‘income’. Simple Fact Number 3 In giving the reason for re-indexing only part of the TPI Pension in 2004, the government, contradicting its own practice, declared that it was because only part of the TPI Pension was ‘income support’, the remainder being ‘compensation’. Now to the reasons you give for your inaction. As proof of the TPI Pension’s adequacy, you quote the Clarke Review saying; ‘total benefit of special rate payments, including maximum service pension, is currently close to or significantly over after-tax Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE) …’. But ‘average weekly earnings’ are obviously ‘income’, so Clarke’s statement is only true if you define the whole of the TPI Pension as ‘income support’. Yet you have spent the first page of your letter arguing that only part of the TPI Pension is ‘income support’. You seem to be guilty of defining the TPI Pension in different ways to suite your purpose of the moment; even in the same letter. You defend the TPI Pension not being re-indexed in 1997 by saying that the government then regarded the whole of it as ‘compensation’. You neglect to mention that, at the same time, the government regarded the whole of the TPI Pension as ‘income’ when calculating reductions in veterans’ Social Security entitlements and when deciding how much a veteran owed the Child Support Agency. It seems that the government, too, was guilty of defining the TPI Pension in different ways to suite the purpose of the moment; a sin it continues to commit. You argue that the Clarke Review found ‘that the VEA recognises the same employer-worker relationship as that recognised by … worker’s compensation legislation’. This is your justification for the TPI Pension/Service Pension package having been changed to fit the workers’ compensation model with its ‘compensation’ element and its ‘income support’ element. However, there is another necessary element to the workers’ compensation model; recipients’ income from their allowable work hours and any income at all earned by their spouses does not effect workers’ compensation payments. Clarke recognised that both elements were necessary if anything like a worker’s compensation model was to be constructed from the TPI Pension/Service Pension package. So in trying to construct a workers’ compensation model, he recommended both that the TPI Pension be split into ‘General Rate’ and ‘Above General Rate’ components and that veterans’ allowable income and the spouses total earned income not be included in the means-test for Service Pension entitlements. You have called on the authority of the Clarke review for the splitting of the TPI Pension without mentioning Clarke’s recommendation of its necessary corollary, the ending of means-testing veterans’ and spouses’ earned incomes. In making no mention of this necessary corollary you are misrepresenting the Clarke Review to justify your inaction. We are disappointed that your letter to us is so flawed by confusion and contradiction; some might even add ‘deceit’. We had thought better of you. All that is left standing are the Three Simple Facts. These three facts are straight-forward, honest and compelling. They define a wrong that can be redressed only by the $80 a fortnight lost value of TPI Pension being returned and by a re-indexing so that increases in the whole of the TPI Pension are linked to increases in the cost of living or increases in the average wage, whichever is the greater. We request a meeting with you to thrash-out these important matters. Yours sincerely, Tim McCombe President ************** VIETNAM VETERANS’ FEDERATION 8 Mary Street Granville PO Box 170 GRANVILLE NSW 2142, Phone (02) 9682 1788 Fax (02) 9682 6134 Hon Bruce Billson MP Minister for Veterans Affairs Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600 23 August 2006 Dear Bruce, We have already sent you one letter of reply to your letter of 6 July 2006 in which you defended your decision to neither make up the lost value of the TPI pension nor to take measures to arrest its continuing decline compared with community incomes. Our reply did not, however, cover all your letter’s claims that beg challenge. You quote Clarke saying: “overall, the current special rate disability package is broadly adequate when considered over the veteran’s lifetime.” The phrase “over the veteran’s lifetime” refers to the TPI Pension being paid for life, rather than being terminated at 65 as are worker’s compensation payments. But why should the fact that the TPI pension is paid for life have any bearing at all on its adequacy? A lifetime pension in the case of severe disablement was an unqualified condition of service to all those who went to war under the Veterans Entitlement Act. It probably sprung from the fact that war service is uniquely arduous and dangerous. It no doubt also sprung from an understanding that disabled war veterans, especially the many not able to work from an early age and the very many whose psychological damage limits their rewards from the workforce, miss the opportunity to save by way of superannuation or buying a house or generally accumulating wealth, to set them up for their older age. Common decency demanded that these severely disabled war veterans be decently provided for in their later years. So surely the question of the adequacy of the TPI Pension must be based entirely on the right of disabled veterans and their families to lead a decent and moderately comfortable life without any consideration of the time of the pension’s termination. Clarke does construct a compensation package terminating at age 65 which he believed offers a decent and moderately comfortable life to disabled veterans and their families. If Clarke is to be the authority (as he appears to be for you), it is this compensation package you should be using as a benchmark by which to judge the adequacy of the existing TPI/Service Pension package. Clarke’s package had a basic payment $35.20 a fortnight more for a partnered veteran compared with the existing arrangements and included the following benefits: · 20% of the veteran’s general rate pension for each student child. · spouse’s wage earned from actual work not means tested; · veteran’s wage from the allowable 8 hours work not means tested for up to 25% of the average wage; · the Gold Card; · VCES; · a subsidy for private health insurance cover for the veteran’s family (in compensation for the veteran himself being covered by the Gold Card); · improved Carers Allowance; and, · a recommendation that the government look for ways of helping TPI pensioners buy a house. So why did Clarke make an issue of the lifetime payment of the TPI Pension? Did he really think that payments after 65 should effect the pension’s fortnightly value? The answer is that we don’t know. What we do know is that, regardless of his views, Clarke had no choice but to but to include the concept in his Review because the Terms of Reference stated: Make recommendations on possible improvements in benefits and support programs to address any identified deficiencies, including the potential to restructure benefits and programs in order to assist the funding of desired reforms. (emphasis added) As if to ram home the point, a later Ministerial press release explained: …a key factor in shaping the Government’s response will be to ensure that the current funding envelope is maintained.(emphasis added) So how could Clarke restructure benefits ‘in order to assist the funding of desired reforms’? Only by bringing back payments made after-65 to bolster what he saw as inadequate before-65 disability payments and benefits. Clarke was forced to breach veterans’ conditions of service in order to construct what he thought was a reasonable TPI type compensation package  . He should never have been put in that invidious position.The idea that veterans whose service is under the Veterans Entitlement Act should be short-changed in their TPI Pension entitlements because the payments are for life should be repudiated by yourself and expunged from the armoury of weapons used by your Department when attacking war veterans’ claims for the return of the TPI Pension’s lost value and the arresting of its continuing decline compared with community incomes. Yours sincerely, Tim McCombe President Footnote ------------------ It is noteworthy that the government is adamant it will not breach the conditions of service under which members and senators enter Parliament. In the government’s 2004 introduction of new superannuation rules for parliamentarians, exempted those already serving. Senator Minchin told the Senate: “Members and Senators come into Parliament on the basis of certain terms and conditions that apply from the time they enter parliament. I think that is perfectly reasonable and proper, but it is not reasonable and proper for any changes to be retrospective.”
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Keith
Aug 29th, 2006 - 7:47 AM |
Re: Vietnam Veterans Federation Speaks Out On TPI Payment
From: Keith Tennent To: WA RSL ; VVFA National ; Victorian RSL ; Vic TPI ; TPI Federation ; Tas TPI ; Tas RSL ; SA RSL ; Queensland RSL ; NSW TPI ; NSW RSL ; National RSL ; Capricornia RSL ; Barry Billing ; ACT RSL ; PVA Sec ; RSL Nat President ; ACT TPI ; WA TPI ; PVA Research and Benefits Member ; Qld VVFA ; TVille VVFA ; Victoria VVFA ; VVAA Sunshine Coast ; PVA Pres ; President EDA Cc: Main Vet List ; Parliamentary List ; Ian McPhedran News Ltd ; Paul Dyer Journo News Limited ; Sasha Uzunov Freelance Journo ; Edith Bevan Journo ; Mike Carey SBS ; Paul Cutler SBS ; Hugo Kelly Journo ; Paul Murray ; Alison Rehn Journo ; Qld Courier Mail Editor Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 6:49 AM Subject: VETERAN SAYS DVA MINISTERS HAVE CONSISTENTLY BEEN MISLED BY THE DEPARTMENT MY COMMENT. Rick is spot on with his email comments BELOW. The TPI impasse would be overcome if the Prime Minister would show some courtesy, genuine interest, leadership and commitment to disabled Veterans by meeting with the TPI Federation President, the Vietnam Veterans Federation President and their leadership teams. The PM will travel all around Australia to back slap troops before they go off to War BUT when the TPI Federation held it's Canberra protest in 2003 outside the Federal Parliament building, the PM would not walk a few hundred metres to meet the TPI President and his delegation, all of whom behaved with admirable calm and good manners. Instead this PM has consistently refused to meet with the TPI President, but regularly meets with the RSL President, who the PM knows is just a mouthpiece for Government policy and who will not tell the PM what he and the Government need to hear. The PM has consistently said for many years that the Liberal Party is a broad Church, which draws together many people with many differing ideas, philosophies and outlooks. Yet, when it comes to the ESO community, which is also a broad Church, the PM and the Government expects all ESOs to be clones of each other and to have no differences of opinion! How come it's all right for the Liberal Party to have differences of opinion, yet it's not ok for the ESO community to have differences of opinion? The other area which needs to be resolved is the National Advisory Committee, which consists of certain selected ESO representatives and departmental officers, is chaired by disgraced former VVAA President McKenzie, which meets in SECRET, which never produces meeting minutes for all Veterans and ESOs to read and which " advises " the Minister. NOBODY, apart from the elite members of the NAC, knows just what advice the Minister receives from this Committee. This is allowed to happen by a Government which has sprouted about the great values of the Democracy we live in for the last ten years. ESOs such as the TPI Federation and Vietnam Veterans Federation have never been invited to become members of this SECRETIVE Committee. McKenzie of course is another well known Government sycophant. So we have a double whammy here. The Minister is not only receiving bad advice from his Department, but he is receiving SECRET advice from a SECRET Committee. On top of this the PM, who rules with an iron fist and who finally decides Veteran policy, meets with ESO leaders such as RSL President Crews who has little respect in the broad Veteran community, and who simply does NOT understand the real issues which exist at the coalface. Another area which MUST be sorted by the PM is the inclusion of the DVA Minister in the Cabinet. We have the absurd situation where the DVA Minister is responsible for a $10 Bil plus budget, YET is not a Cabinet member. The PM must include the DVA Minister in the cabinet. The consistent stumbling block in Cabinet to the financing of disabled Veteran policies has been Treasury, represented in Cabinet of course by Minister Costello. Even Foreign Affairs Minister Downer has admitted the stumbling block to the TPI and disabled Veteran issues has been Treasury. Yet because the DVA Minister is NOT a Cabinet member, he is powerless to argue against Treasury in the Cabinet, and has to sit on the sidelines and wait to see what Minister Costello and the PM dish up to him from the Cabinet table. This MUST change. Please read on.................. From: advisor@echidna.id.au Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 11:54 PM Subject: Re: LOSS OF VALUE OF THE TPI PENSION I suspect that Billson is being fed all of this from the public servants that have been running the Department for the past number of years. Commonsense tells me that with past Ministers such as Scott, Vale and Kelly not lasting their jobs, that something is wrong. Billson may be the next on the list because he keeps getting fed the crap from within his own department. The rules have been changed over the years with all of the spin doctors massaging the various Acts. All they have done is confuse the issue, even for someone astute as Billson. I am sure that they would do their best to confuse him. Maybe Billson and Nelson for that matter should be kicking a few heads within their Departments and get to the bottom of all of this. Justice Clarke tried to do something but my guess is that he also would have been dealing with the PS plebes who have no doubt have their own existence to look after. The Minister has the responsibility to look after veterans. If he took a simplistic view of things, he would see that veterans are not happy and with good reason. Why is this so? It is because the system that is supposed to look after them is wrong and hence the multitude of complaints that he and past Minister's were getting through their office. The Clarke Report was supposed to define an answer but the government failed to implement a number of recommendations. Result is that there are still problems and veterans are still complaining. Therefore, the Minister needs to take a personal stance on the issues.He should tell the Public Servants to butt out and listen to what veterans organisations are saying. Only after he fully comprehends where and what the gripes are about, should he then converse with his public servants but not behind closed doors.This should be done in open Committee with the representative ex-service organisations present so that for once and for all the matters can be laid on the table, discussed and solutions found. All we have now is ESOs and veterans going to the Minister who gets fed a response from his department and he puts his signature on it, believing his public servants are correct. We know they are not and Minister Billson needs to understand this before he too ends up on the scrap heap. This would be courtesy of the public servants that are supposed to serve him but more importunately look after veterans. In finality, you can not retrospectively crucify a veteran and the payments he is entitled to by consistent alteration to the rules. We served our country fully understanding that we would be looked after as casualties of war. As far as I am concerned, you can not move the goal posts continually in an effort to negate these obligations. Certainly the cry went out when the changes were being made to MPs superannuation and 'yes' there was no retrospectively. Take care, Rick |
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Keith
Aug 29th, 2006 - 9:25 AM |
Re: Vietnam Veterans Federation Speaks Out On TPI Payment
From: Keith Tennent To: WA RSL ; VVFA National ; Victorian RSL ; Vic TPI ; TPI Federation ; Tas TPI ; Tas RSL ; SA RSL ; Queensland RSL ; NSW TPI ; NSW RSL ; National RSL ; Capricornia RSL ; Barry Billing ; ACT RSL ; PVA Sec ; RSL Nat President ; ACT TPI ; WA TPI ; PVA Research and Benefits Member ; Qld VVFA ; TVille VVFA ; Victoria VVFA ; VVAA Sunshine Coast ; PVA Pres ; President EDA Cc: Main Vet List ; Parliamentary List ; Ian McPhedran News Ltd ; Paul Dyer Journo News Limited ; Sasha Uzunov Freelance Journo ; Edith Bevan Journo ; Mike Carey SBS ; Paul Cutler SBS ; Hugo Kelly Journo ; Paul Murray ; Alison Rehn Journo ; Qld Courier Mail Editor Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 8:19 AM Subject: THIS IS WHAT THE VVFA HAD TO SAY ABOUT THE CLARKE REVIEW To All TPI Veterans The Review of Veterans Entitlements Just how fair dinkum is the government about this review? NOT LONG BEFORE the last election, the government promised to set up a review of certain veterans' Entitlements. This promise came in response to unrest in sections of the veteran community, particularly TPIs, British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF) veterans, veterans of British atomic testing in Australia and SAS troops involved in counter terrorist training. The TPIs in particular were being troublesome, even holding a demonstration outside Federal Parliament. The only legitimate reason for a government to set up a review is that the government and its bureaucracy don't have sufficient understanding of an issue for the Federal Cabinet to make informed decisions. Otherwise Ministers would simply submit their informed views at a meeting of Cabinet where decisions would be made. A legitimate review's function, then, is to investigate the issue by gathering all relevant facts and opinions, then presenting them in the form of a report to the government. The report then goes to interested government departments, where it is examined. With the aid of the report, the government departments form their views on the issues and write briefs for their ministerial heads. The Ministers then meet in Federal Cabinet where an informed discussion leads to decision making. Of course, a review will need technical advice from the bureaucracy to help it understand the issues. But Government departments will not be in a position to advise on what the Reviews recommendations should be because it is the departments' incomplete understanding of all the issues which has led to the review being established. SO WE WERE VERY DISTURBED to see that there are submissions made to the Review of Veteran Entitlements by interested government departments which go much further than offer technical advice. These submissions make quite clear to the Review what its conclusions and recommendations should be. Of course, it doesn't make sense does it? The Review was set up because the government does not have enough information on which to make decisions and here is the government telling its own Review what it should conclude. The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations was very definite in what it thought the Review should conclude. It strongly urged the following: § The BCOF veterans' request should be denied. § No special consideration should be given when compensating veterans hurt facing the enemy (such as the Invalidity Service pension and early Service Pension). § There should be no increase to the TPI pension. § SAS counter-terrorist training should not attract more generous compensation cover'. No doubts were expressed. No indication that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations might be waiting for more information from the Review to come to a definite conclusion. These are its definite conclusions .The Department of Defence submission was not much less strident in its urging of the Review not to raise the TPI rate, lest it flow on to other military compensation areas, and in urging the Review not to be mote generous to those who have faced the enemy  . Defence, like Employment and Workplace Relations, gave every indication that it thoroughly understood the issues and these were its definite decisions.The Department of Family and Community Services submission told the Review in no uncertain arms that Veterans' Disability Pensions, including the TPI, should not be exempt from the means test at Centrelink  . The Department gave every indication that this was its considered and final position.The Ministerial heads of these departments will be the main contributors to the decision making in Cabinet (along with the Minister for Veterans Affairs) and their  positions on these issues are definite and set. So what is the point of having those issues canvassed by the Review!Here we have a Review established to give government departments the information they should need to work out their positions on the issues. Instead we have the Review being advised what its conclusions should be by the very departments the Review was established to inform. How can we make sense of this? IF THE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS mainly concerned with these issues have already made up their minds, it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the Review was not really set up to inform them. So for what reason could the Review have been set up? The fact the review was promised shortly before the last election may be relevant. Some suggest the Review may have been promised to quieten noisy sections of the veteran community during the last election campaign. In other words, the government already knew its position on all the issues being raised by veterans, but they were positions that would be unpopular. So making those decisions before the election would cause even more trouble. So how to put off the decisions and at the same time quieten the disgruntled veterans? Promise a Review to be established after the election. If this was the purpose of the promise, it certainly worked. The veteran groups quietened down during the election campaign. But Reviews can be troublesome creatures for governments. Eminent people appointed to conduct such reviews can be hard to control, often refusing to come up with the recommendations governments want. So what could a government do to get the recommendations it wants? One way would be to have powerful government departments make submissions urging certain directions and warning the Review of the consequences of making certain unwelcome (to the government) recommendations. As it happens just such submissions have been made by the Departments of Employment, Defence and Family Services to our Review. Another way a government could influence a review would be by urging financial meanness in its Terms of Reference. As it happens, the Terms of Reference for the Review of Veterans Entitlements include the following warnings: "Make recommendations on the potential to restructure benefits and programs in order to assist the funding of desired reforms.” In other words, if you decide justice demands an increase in benefits here, you better find a compensating decrease there. If you want to pay Peter, you better rob Paul. But who will be the Paul who most be robbed? And as if that didn't make the point clear enough, the Terms of Reference also include: "In its deliberations the committee will need to bear in mind the commitment of Government to responsible economic management Not a mention of ‘generosity' anywhere. And the media releases by the Minister for Veterans Affairs have supported this pressure for meanness. For instance, a 1 September 2002, media release states: "Third is the Government's commitment to responsible economic management, a continuing imperative not only far the Veterans' Affairs portfolio but across all Government programs. "We must take a responsible approach to any additional spending, which is why the Review committee was instructed to consider the potential to restructure benefits and programs in order to assist the funding of possible improvements to disability benefits and support programs." (Emphasis added) Whose benefit is to be "restructured" to pay for needed improvements? BUT HOW, YOU ASK, could all this effect the three eminent men of good-will and undoubted integrity who are conducting the Review? The answer is this: Those three men of integrity and good-will don't want any report they write to simply follow so many other review reports into the Prime Minister's bottom drawer, never to be seen again. For our sake as well as theirs they want to write a report which the government will find palatable, one that has a chance of at least partial government acceptance. Otherwise their months of effort have been to no avail. Better to gain a pitiful little than nothing at all. So how might it be made clear to the Review that the government will reject any recommendations for generosity no matter how justified? By having government departments make clear to the Review just what Government policy really is on these issues and urge financial meanness in the Terms of Reference and in Ministerial media releases. Is this what is really happening? Unfortunately all the evidence points in that direction. THERE HAVE BEEN THOSE TPI PENSIONERS who have welcomed the Review with the following thoughts: "When I was sent to the war, I simply had to do what was required, no hesitation, no excuses and no limit to the price I might have to pay. Not for me to say: 'I'll fight only if the price I pay can be limited to a soft flesh gunshot wound or some minor wounding from the shrapnel of an exploding RPG 7 rocket. I certainly won't fight if I could get killed.' Not for me to say: 'I'll go as long as I can land my helicopter only in safe landing zones.' Or: ‘I'11 go if you can guarantee the price I pay will not include the life destroying effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or the horror of cancer.' "So I suppose the Review and the government will simply observe that TPI's are unable to enjoy the standard of living of the average Australian family and do what is required to achieve this. No hesitation, no excuses." But the evidence suggests that those who have been thinking in this way are, sadly, way off-beam. Indeed, the evidence suggests they have been played for fools. We all have. WE HOPE, OF COURSE, that we are mistaken, that this is not what is really happening and that the Review will urge substantial increases in TPI benefits so as to allow TPI's to have the standard of living of the average Australian family. And we hope the Australian government, treating its damaged war veterans with justice and generosity, will follow those urgings. We hope, too, that the Review will find imaginative solutions to the other veterans' problems and that the government will adopt them But we are not holding our breath. Yours truly, Tim McCombe President ----------------------- 1 Review of Veterans Entitlements submission 2466, Submission by ~ Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (Rex Hoy, 13 June 2002), see last page in particular. Available on the Review's web-site accessible through the web-site of the Department of Veterans Affairs. 2 Review of Veterans' Entitlements submission 2339, Submission by the Department of Defence, (Allan Hawke, 27 May 2002), see Particularly page 14 paras 75 and 76. 3 Review of Veterans' Entitlements submission 2390, Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services Submission. (Wayne Jackson, 31 May 2002), see especially last paragraph on page7. |
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Keith
Aug 29th, 2006 - 12:47 PM |
Re: Vietnam Veterans Federation Speaks Out On TPI Payment
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