Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee (part 2 of 2) — hearing of 26 September 2025: transcript & video · Polyfact

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Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee (part 2 of 2)

26 September 2025

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Contents updated on 22 Oct 2026

A veteran representative details severe financial harm caused by misuse of the Defence Home Ownership Assistance Scheme (DOHAS) and advocacy fees, including loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars and the resulting feelings of personal failure among veterans.

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Veteran financial harm case study and panel adjournment

00:00

Case study of veteran financial loss

00:00

Chair closes first witness panel

01:37

Committee reconvenes with DVA — scope of commission-based advocacy and fraud

17:17

Hearing reconvenes — departmental witnesses introduced

17:17

DVA: concerns about commission-based advocacy

20:15

Fraud, AFP involvement and integrity measures

25:16

Protecting veteran consumers and considering legislative controls

28:56

Protecting veterans as consumers — warnings and outreach

28:56

Regulatory reform and legislative options

32:24

Legislating against commission fees and offshore operations

34:57

Break fees, misleading contracts and free advice

38:47

Process controls on fee-for-service advocates

40:45

Government inaction, sector growth and exposure

44:08

System reform: new Veterans’ Act and claims processing performance

50:42

Complexity of DVA claims and legislative harmonisation

50:42

New Vets Act — presumptive conditions and liability tests

52:02

Backlog clearance and rising claim volumes

54:48

Patterns of commission-based claims and managing harmful advocate behaviour

59:39

Profile of commission-based claims and over-claiming

59:39

Poor clinical quality and coercive advocate behaviour

01:03:36

Managing abusive advocates and role of a professional body

01:07:22

Compensation structures, Institute of Veterans Advocacy and commercial models

01:10:25

Lump-sum versus periodic compensation and data gaps

01:10:25

Institute of Veterans Advocacy — structure and enforcement

01:13:20

Why veterans choose commercial advocates

01:17:16

Acceptable paid models versus exploitative commissions

01:20:20

Regulatory vacuum, DVA’s limited powers and closing remarks

01:23:07

Legal vacuum, departmental limits and need for ministerial action

01:23:07

DVA’s limited powers to restrict providers and issue alerts

01:25:43

Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner’s perspective and closing

01:28:37

Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee (part 2 of 2)

26 September 2025

Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee Fri, 26 Sept 2025 Australian Parliament

00:00 - 00:01

Yes.

00:02 - 00:03

Can you elaborate on that?

00:05 - 00:52

Speaker 37

Within... Not... To not break any, because I I haven't spoken to the member's family since the funeral, but they... Because they lost a substantial amount of money, and I I can speak off... Offline with this with you if you need.

They didn't have the money to purchase their house to live in. There's others instances where the DOHAS loan, they've, so the defense home ownership scheme is not being used correctly, and there's all these other things coming to actual perspective of what's going on. Whereas if they had that 10% of the $1,600,000, that could have gone towards buying a house. That could have gone towards these other things. And that's that's where it comes down.

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