Arabic version: لامبي تدعو إلى رعاية أفضل للمحاربات السابقات

According to ABC News, Senator Jacqui Lambie used an emotional Senate speech to call attention to health care barriers faced by female veterans, as the government and opposition reached agreements on several major policy issues.

Lambie described the medical battle behind her five-month absence from Parliament House, saying her vaginal prolapse and subsequent surgery were directly linked to back injuries from her army service. She also raised the case of a female veteran, Kate, who waited three years to find a gynaecologist willing to accept Department of Veterans’ Affairs payments. Lambie said the issue reflected broader problems in the department’s treatment of female veterans.

Her intervention focused on the government’s proposed $5,000 cap on veterans’ allied health spending, covering services including chiropractic care and physiotherapy. The cap, announced in the budget, is intended to address dodgy providers and is due to begin next year. The government says veterans can seek additional funding where clinically indicated, but veterans have questioned the department’s ability to administer the measure. Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh later met the Coalition of Veterans’ Voice after acknowledging he had initially “got it wrong” by declining a meeting request.

Elsewhere, Labor and the Coalition agreed on gambling advertising changes that would create an opt-out register for online wagering advertisements. The changes are to be reviewed in three years. The government also moved to fast-track a fix for an unintended inheritance and death-or-divorce loophole in negative-gearing changes, after the Coalition threatened to delay National Disability Insurance Scheme legislation.

Debate also continued over superannuation access and tobacco excise. Pauline Hanson argued Australians under cost-of-living pressure should be able to access super early, while Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the next election would be a referendum on super. One Nation proposed cutting cigarette excise by 75 per cent, while Barnaby Joyce said legal cigarette prices should be brought closer to illegal prices. The government said it did not want to engage in price competition with organised crime.