The Minister for Veterans' Affairs' threats to resign on the eve of the Budget over funding shortfalls shows the Morrison-Joyce Government is completely divided and dysfunctional when it comes to the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA). 

Veterans are waiting years for their compensation claims to be processed by an under-resourced and under-staffed DVA, and there is a huge backlog of around 60,000 claims. 

The Minister has belatedly and blatantly admitted this is unacceptable and a "national disgrace". 

Minister Gee says he asked for $96 million to clear the backlog by the middle of next year, however the Prime Minister has thrown him under the bus, saying there will only be fraction of that in Tuesday's Budget, with the possibility of further funding down the track. 

It sounds like whatever the Government announces in the Budget will be just another short-term political fix from Scott Morrison designed to get them through to the election. 

Last year, they trumpeted a DVA "budget boost" that turned out to be a cruel hoax because the additional funding and jobs only lasted for two years – and clearly it has had no effect on claim wait times and backlogs. 

Surely the Minister should have been more vocal and fought harder months ago if he wanted to lock in this funding. 

He needs to follow through and resign if the extra resources he has called for are not in Tuesday's Budget.

Beyond that, the wellbeing of our veterans and their families should not have to become a political problem for Scott Morrison to pay attention. 

Thanks to the Government's arbitrary APS staffing cap policy, DVA continues to rely on high levels of poorly trained labour hire workers with high turnover. 

The Coalition needs to follow Labor's lead and commit to abolishing the public service staffing cap, so DVA can hire the permanent staff it needs to process claims faster and give our veterans the services they deserve.

This is why we also called for the current Royal Commission into veteran suicide to look at the role of the public service and DVA, and the impact of the veteran support system is having on veterans' mental health. 

It's just not good enough and our veterans deserve better. 

If ever our ex-service men and women needed more proof that the LNP can't be trusted to look after their needs, this is it. 

Only Labor is on the side of Australia's ex-service men and women. Only Labor has a plan to fix DVA, and give our veterans and their families the services they deserve.