The sad story Tom Elliott has highlighted | 3AW Melbourne

This is a sad story.You might have heard of an SAS soldier Cameron Beard.

He was in Iraq and in Timor and did four tours of Afghanistan.Tragically, on his fourth tour, he died.and he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.But what is sad here is that all VC recipients are given around about a $6 ,000 a year travel allowance each year by the federal government so they can travel around and talk to people about what it means and valour and the Victoria Cross and so forth.

Back in 2014, Tony Abbott's government said that Doug Baird, the father of slain soldier Cameron Baird, could have half that allowance so he and his wife could travel around and talk about what their son had done.In August last year, Veterans Affairs Minister Matt Keogh wrote to the Baird family saying the Federal Government would no longer fund this 50 % travel allowance.Again, we're talking, I think it's about $2 ,850.That's just extraordinary, isn't it?We've got, you know, the Federal Government's approaching a trillion dollars in debt, the State Government $200 billion in debt, we've got highly paid LGBTQIA plus advisors, explaining to us how we can have more such people working on the big build projects like the Suburban Rail Loop.We've got the City of Melbourne with a $200 ,000 a year office in Tianjin in China.

We've got a State MP, Bronwyn Cafferney, who went on a $23 ,000 taxpayer -funded trip to Ghana and to Nigeria and to Cameroon.And we can't find a bid under $3 ,000 a year for the parents of a VC recipient to travel around to talk about their son.Extraordinary, penny -wise.Pound foolish.