3. Question No. 3—VeteransJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First) to the Minister for VeteransQuestion No. 3—Veterans3. JENNY MARCROFT (NZ First) to the Minister for Veterans: What recent announcements has he made regarding support for veterans? Hon RON MARK (Minister for Veterans): On 27 July I announced that the coalition Government had approved a one-off grant of $2.53 million to be made to the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association (RSA) from the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund. The RSA's fund-raising had been hard hit by COVID19's pandemic with the annual Poppy Day appeal having been cancelled this year because New Zealand was at alert level 4. This has affected the RSA's ability to maintain its delivery infrastructure and the amount of support it has available to deliver to veterans. The Government grant will help the RSA to maintain its current level of support to these vulnerable citizens and to deliver its services to them in the face of the COVID-19 challenges. Jenny Marcroft: What recent declarations have been made related to qualifying operational service? Hon RON MARK: Last week as part of an ongoing review of the post-1974 deployments I announced that 11 new declarations of operational service had been made. These primarily affect those who served in certain times and certain places such as Cambodia Somalia the Sinai Peninsula and on board HMNZS Canterbury and HMNZS Waikato in the Indian Ocean. This means that those who took part in these deployments will now qualify for support and services from Veterans' Affairs. Our people in the New Zealand Defence Force serve or have served their country in a variety of ways overseas often in very difficult and dangerous conditions and these changes will be welcomed by our veterans and will positively affect around 1300 service members. Jenny Marcroft: What will the recently passed Veterans' Support Amendment Bill (No 2) mean for veterans and their families? Hon RON MARK: I want to start the answer to this question by thanking the House Mr Speaker and yourself for the way in which this bill was expedited through. This bill has made a range of very meaningful changes that will make life easier for veterans and their families and I thank all members of the House for their unanimous and timely support last week. To highlight just a few of these changes it will enable Veterans' Affairs to fund mental health services for veterans with acute needs before eligibility has been formally established. It will extend some services to families such as counselling where this is necessary for the veteran's wellbeing. It will abolish the five-year restriction on childcare assistance. It will enable Veterans' Independence Programme household support services to continue for 12 months when a veteran goes into care to assist their spouse or partner and their family. It will better recognise psychological illness conditions that are attributed to or aggravated by a veteran's service. Jenny Marcroft: Has there been any progress on the out-of-scope recommendation made by Professor Ron Paterson in his report on the legal definition of a veteran? Hon RON MARK: Yes I can report some progress. A wee while back Cabinet approved my going out to the nation asking the question of the nation: what do they believe an appropriate definition of a veteran should be? We have had tremendous feedback. I have that report and I'll be releasing the results of that very soon.