Page 3758 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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eligible for the pensioner duty concession scheme, which encourages older Canberrans to downsize to houses more suited to their changing needs.
The Canberra Hospital, our major public hospital, has a dedicated veterans liaison officer to help veterans, ex-service men and women, war widows and their families when they attend the hospital. The officer is employed to assist with a wide range of specialist services and provides liaison with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the commonwealth if it is needed. The Canberra Hospital has a veterans lounge for the exclusive use of veterans. The lounge, which is wheelchair accessible, offers veterans a television and video system, a selection of daily newspapers and a small library, a phone for local calls, a computer with access to the internet and the obligatory tea and coffee making facilities.
Every year at the Canberra Hospital staff and patients remember ANZAC Day, with a service at the veterans gardens located just outside the veterans lounge. Each year the ANZAC commemoration is organised by the Woden Valley RSL and a group of Vietnam Veterans Federation members called the Dark and Stormies. This commemoration allows hospitalised veterans to commemorate this special day.
Labor’s record is a proud one when it comes to recognising the special contribution made to our nation and our way of life by service men and women. Interestingly, in all the approaches that have been made to the Chief Minister by veterans over the years, not once has there been one suggesting that Labor might elevate its support for veterans by nominating a minister for veterans affairs.
It is passing strange, though perhaps not particularly surprising, given the low energy levels of those opposite, that since Mr Hanson became the Liberals’ veterans spokesperson to great fanfare last ANZAC Day, little seems to have been done publicly to warrant the creation of the title. The Liberal website still lists no veterans policy. There has not been a single media release from the spokesman on the subject. And most bizarrely, Mr Hanson does not even list veterans affairs among his shadow ministerial responsibilities in his official profile on the Liberal Party website.
The government appreciates the opportunity to inform the Assembly of the support the government gives to this very important group in our community who have given so much. Those of us who have been privileged to serve our community in this place and to meet and talk to service men and women past and present, I think, get a better understanding than most of the sacrifice and the service that have been rendered by them. It outstrips any other form of community service. We respect that service. We honour it and we will continue to work and provide support to veterans wherever possible to continue that tradition.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (6.19): I thank Mr Hanson for the motion. The Greens will be supporting the motion, with one minor amendment. I too acknowledge and support the significant contributions veterans have made and continue to make to our community and very much to the way Australia has become a country and developed an identity, as Mr Hanson’s motion states. A day such as ANZAC Day, for example, has left an indelible mark on our lives and continues to impact our younger generations. My own great-grandfather fought as a light horseman in World War I; so
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