There are tens of thousands of pages to the federal budget. But a single paragraph on page 97, which could easily have been missed,It shows a decision by the Albanese government to fix a situation left by their predecessors that is beyond comprehension, and a stain on the Morrison government’s legacy.
This $6.5 billion funding allocation is an indictment against the Morrison government, the backstory to it enough to make your blood boil. This was a known and growing issue for the Coalition. In March 2022, ahead of Josh Frydenberg’s final budget, then veterans affairs minister Andrew Gee threatened to resign unless extra money was put aside to clear the backlog, which at the time was around 60,000 unallocated cases.
The incoming Labor government, including new Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh, quickly realised the disaster left by the previous bunch and confidentially talked to veterans affairs ministers going all way the way back to the Rudd government to understand what he had been handed. Unsurprisingly, the department has become more efficient since switching back to public service employees. The backlog of number of unallocated cases has reduced to just 2569 and the processing wait time, while still far too long, has dropped by 62 days.
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