Christian Democratic Party Leader Reverend the Hon Fred Nile MLC and Senate team leader for New South Wales Pastor Paul Green have called upon the Government to commit to creating an entitlement to the War Widows Pension for divorced war widows.

The 2001 Budget restored the War Widow's Pension to around 3,000 War Widows who had remarried prior to May 1984 and had therefore lost their pension eligibility. Some of those ladies had been widowed twice.

"A category of former spouses of servicemen - the divorced war widow - still remains unfairly treated," said Reverend Nile, a former Infantry Company commander. "Typically, such a lady was deprived of the company of her husband while he served the nation during war. He may have returned wounded or psychologically damaged. He may have acquired a drinking problem or a smoking habit or an anxiety disorder or even a mental illness as the result of his military service. The wife has for decades nursed him and cared for him and perhaps endured spells of unpleasantness or even violence. Separation and divorce have eventually come about, quite possibly directly attributable to a war related cause. The ex-serviceman has probably remarried, maybe to a much younger woman. He dies, and the new wife likely inherits his estate, but also is entitled to the War Widow's pension. The original wife, who bore the cost of war, gets nothing."

Paul Green added. "I am aware of a case where a cancer-stricken ex-serviceman was deserted by his second wife. The first wife, whom he had divorced ten years earlier to take up with the younger woman, returned to nurse him for the last months of his life. I would expect this is not an isolated case. As a Senator I shall devote a great deal of effort to removing unjust anomalies from our system of caring for the elderly and the disadvantaged. Divorced war widows are presently victims of such an anomaly."