Veterans could not trust Joyce as their Minister

Independent JLN Senate Candidate for QLD, Veteran of 3 conflicts and former officer with the Australian Defence Force, Marcus Saltmarsh has slammed Barnaby Joyce for indicating that he was qualified to be the Veterans’ Affairs Minister because he thought he was a “great supporter” of our veterans.

“I recall that Mr Joyce thought he was also a “great supporter” of the agricultural sector. And we have seen how that has worked out for the poor farmers. Barnaby has done nothing to help stop Australian farmers from taking their own lives after they’ve been unfairly ripped off by banks and multinationals for decades – what makes Mr Joyce think that he’s qualified to stop battle hardened Veterans from killing themselves after decades of being bullied, ignored and forgotten by a dysfunctional and dangerous Department of Veterans’ Affairs?” said Mr Saltmarsh.

“You only have to ask Australia’s Dairy Farmers who have been betrayed by Mr Joyce and led into bankruptcy by out of control, greedy multinationals – or the farmers of the Liverpool Plains (in Mr Joyce’s own backyard) who are fighting against a Chinese Government owned coal mine which will ruin some of Australia’s best prime agricultural land – to know how ineffective and useless the Nationals leader has been.” said Mr Saltmarsh.

“Australian veterans already have a hard enough time dealing with a dysfunctional and dangerous department – why would you add insult to injury and put a dud in charge of them? The DVA has covered up an out of control veterans suicide crisis where at least 278 veterans have killed themselves since 1999. That’s about one every 2 weeks – why hasn’t Mr Joyce already addressed these issues in the Department of Veterans Affairs in his capacity of the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia?

Unless Barnaby Joyce is willing to support the JLN’s policies of:

1. Grant automatic Veteran Affairs gold healthcare cards to all veterans of war or war-like conflicts as a condition of service;
2. Support for a royal commission into the Department of Veterans’ Affairs
3. A Private Members Bill which links defence pay rises to CPI or politician’s pay increases or whichever is the greater of the two;
4. The correct and long overdue indexation of veterans’ pensions, including but not limited to the DFRDB, DFRB and ComSuper pension schemes.
… then he can’t be trusted – and is making a cynical, belated and desperate bid for veterans and their supporters’ votes to save his seat” said Mr Saltmarsh.
Rob Messenger for Senator Jacqui Lambie Senator for Tasmania