Services Australia has opened the myGov application to veteran services following a major funding boost in the federal budget.
Through an integration with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA), 300,000 former armed personnel can digitally access their veteran cards through myGov’s digital wallet.
Veteran cards provide access to funded treatment for medical and mental health conditions, injuries, and other services and support.
In addition, DVA’s MyService, a consolidated platform for veterans to apply and manage pensions, as well as submit health claims, will also become available through myGov.
The veteran cards, both white and gold, will sit alongside those of Medicare, Centrelink and the international Covid-19 vaccination certificates in the Services Australia application.
In a doorstop interview, minister for veteran affairs Matt Keogh called the integration an “important change”, adding that 250,000 veteran card holders already have connected MyService to MyGov.
In the most recent budget, Services Australia received $580 million over four years to maintain and continue developing myGov, amounting to about $145 million a year.
The injection followed years of “opportunistic funding bursts, without ongoing funding certainty”, which was described as providing “an unsustainable basis for developing myGov as a critical element of national service delivery infrastructure”.
At the same time, $288.1 million in funding was announced to support the roll out of a national digital ID.
In the same doorstop interview, minister for government services Bill Shorten said the digital ID had made “progress in the last few months” but was unable to give a timeline into if and when these would also be integrated into myGov.