Veterans Affairs Minister Judith Collins today announced changes to the travel concessions for severely disabled war veterans, to make the system legally compliant and fairer to veterans.

The War Pensions Regulations 1956 provides concessions for travel by public transport for war veterans with severe levels of disability to undertake a recreational activity.

However, a longstanding practice of Veterans' Affairs New Zealand (VANZ) has been to also pay the travel concession to veterans who make these journeys using private cars, a practice it turns out that falls outside of the legislation.

Moreover, the concession has been paid to veterans only when travelling across a regional boundary. This disadvantaged veterans who travelled within regional boundaries.

Ms Collins today announced changes to the scheme to legally recognise the use of private cars and create a payment system that treated veterans evenly.

"These changes will bring fairness and certainty back into the system," Ms Collins said.

"The concessions have been in place since 1922. Over this time cars have replaced public transport as the main way people move around our country, so the rules needed to be changed to reflect that VANZ was reimbursing disabled veterans who used their own cars.

"This also presented an opportunity to address unfairness in the way those rules had been set around veterans qualifying only when certain geographic boundaries were crossed."

An eligible veteran who wanted to travel from Dunedin to Queenstown - a round trip of 566 km, or Hicks Bay to Gisborne - a round trip of 362 km - could not claim a travel concession, while other veterans who lived close to a regional boundary were able to claim the travel concession for trips of less than 10km.

"Clearly that's just nonsense and needed to be fixed up," Ms Collins said.

Cabinet considered a number of options to remedy the situation and decided to change the travel concession to reflect a proposal made by the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services' Association (RNZRSA).

"I am very appreciative of the input provided by the RSA in reaching this solution. They are to be congratulated for being such strong advocates for veterans," Ms Collins said.

The regulations to bring this scheme into force will be passed early in the New Year.

Background:

Features of the new travel concession:

- The war pensions travel concession will be paid for travel in private cars for trips over a distance of 80km, a 160km round trip, paid at 22.5 cents per km.

- The war pensions travel concession will refund for travel on public transport for trips over a distance of 80km, a 160km round trip. This would only be for travel that could not be accessed using the SuperGold card travel concession as the Government are already subsidising this travel.

- The war pensions travel concession will refund for travel by air for distances over 80km, a 160km round trip, by paying the equivalent mileage allowance of 22.5 cents per km or refunding the actual airfare, whichever is the lesser amount.

The main group of travel concession holders are veterans who have a War Disablement Pension of 100%. The other two groups that are entitled to a travel concession are veterans who are unable, due to their service related disabilities, to travel alone; and veterans who have a War Disablement Pension of at least 50% for a disability which impedes mobility.

These changes do not affect medical travel by war veterans. VANZ pays travel to attend medical treatment and rehabilitation services. There is no restriction on the distance that must be travelled by the veteran, when they are claiming travel to medical treatment and rehabilitation services.