Today, the Albanese Government withdrew the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal Bill 2025, after sustained pressure from the community.
This Bill sought to make significant backward changes to Defence Honours cases before the Awards Appeals Tribunal. It would have seen a 20-year time limit for reviewing honours and a separate 6-month appeals period for challenging decisions. The Bill would also remove the rights of extended families and experts to appeal decisions or seek awards to recognise past bravery and service.
The Greens co-authored a motion in the Senate in the last sitting week seeking to remove this Bill from the notice paper, sending a clear message to the Government.
The government's action today recognises the hard political reality that this Bill had zero support in the Parliament outside the Labor Party.
You can read the Greens' full dissenting report on this Bill here.
Senator David Shoebridge, Greens Spokesperson on Defence and Veterans Affairs, said: "This is a victory for common sense against a Government that has been determined to ignore the Senate, and the entire veterans community."
"We have seen routinely over the past year the Albanese Government treat opposing voices with disdain and hostility. This means even when the entire Parliament was pointing out that one of their Bills will hurt veterans, they didn't want to listen.
"There have been positive and welcome developments concerning the treatment of veterans over recent years, however, this Bill represented a step back.
"We will continue to work with the Government to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans Suicide, but we will not wave through bad laws.
"In recent history, we have seen rank-and-file Australian soldiers face horrible abuse in the military only to be abandoned by the higher-ups once they leave. This Bill represented a Defence leadership that gets what it wants with no pushback, until today."
