The proposed allied-health changes were announced in the federal Budget in May and will take effect from July 1, 2027.<\/p>\n
The proposal would make Veteran Card holders have their allied-health treatment reviewed once spending reaches $5,000 in a financial year<\/a>.<\/p>\n Led by Nationals leader Matt Canavan, a press conference at Parliament House saw multiple veterans speak out against a recent meeting they had with Mr Keogh.<\/p>\n Founder and Veteran Lived Experience Facilitator Andy Cullen said as a result of the meeting, he was now strongly urging his 18-year-old son not to join the military out of fear the Albanese government was failing defence personnel.<\/p>\n “(Minister Keogh) said he wanted to hear from the veteran community and I\u00a0was privileged to sit with a bunch of very brave veterans who shared the many concerns that we have about the negative impact this cap will have on the veteran’s community,” he said.<\/p>\n “(Minister Keogh) said that he wanted to consult the wider veteran community further. And leaving that meeting, I felt disappointed. To be honest, I feel kind of betrayed.<\/p>\n “I’m a fourth-generation soldier who’s served this country proudly. I have an 18-year-old son who’s looking to enter the defence force at the moment, who I’m encouraging actively not to do that, because I don’t know if this government is going to live up to its promise to look after him if he’s injured as a result of that service.<\/p>\n “And it’s a pretty devastating thing to say as a father and a proud veteran in this community.”<\/p>\n In recent weeks, Veterans\u2019 Affairs Minister Matt Keogh<\/a> faced backlash over a previous meeting with the Coalition of Veterans\u2019 Voices.<\/p>\n Veterans said Minister Keogh appeared dismissive during the meeting, claiming he slouched in his chair and rolled his eyes during talks.<\/p>\n Following today’s meeting, Mr Cullen said the government had made a promise to protect veterans that it must live up to, urging Minister Keogh to “scrap the cap, stop the pain”.<\/p>\n Coalition of Veterans\u00a0representative\u00a0Tim Nelson said the meeting was “disappointing”, claiming Minister Keogh was “unaware” of certain details of the system already in place.<\/p>\n “What was disappointing in this meeting was Minister Keogh wanted to hear all the stories and wanted our recommendations as part of the consultation process … Such that we could design a system that would allow the threshold to be introduced,” he said.<\/p>\n “When challenged as to why we actually need a threshold in the first place, it was justified that only less than 10 per cent of veterans would be affected. The number estimated is about 7 per cent.<\/p>\n “The justification for the threshold was also given that the benefit of it was to be able to reduce the 12-visit care cycle. When I pointed out to the Minister that there was already a mechanism in place that actually deals with that at present, he was unaware that that was a system that DVA (Department of Veterans’ Affairs) already had in place.<\/p>\n “If the justification is to increase access to allied health care, that mechanism already exists.”<\/p>\n Mr Keogh has defended the healthcare reforms and argued service members can still receive treatment above the $5,000 threshold.<\/p>\n The government has also flagged higher allied-health provider fees and the removal of repeated referral requirements will improve the system.<\/p>\n However, Dr Nelson said the Department had shown it had failed to communicate to veterans and insisted the cap “needs to go”.<\/p>\n “Once again it shows to me a failure in DVA’s ability to communicate to veterans and to the health care providers that look after veterans,” Dr Nelson said.<\/p>\n “The cap needs to go. We need to scrap the cap.”<\/p>\n Read related topics:Labor Party<\/a>Veterans Affairs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veterans have demanded the Albanese government abandon its planned $5,000 allied-health threshold in an emotional press conference on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6101,1869,22,21,5735,112076,1865,1532],"class_list":["post-91147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-adf","tag-albanese","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-defence","tag-keogh","tag-protest","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\u2018Disgusting\u2019:](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/aef7c9ac86cd7b584553fd8586b29b91.jpeg\")
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