New POW funding 'too little, too late'

A new Prisoner of War Recognition Supplement will provide former POWs with an extra $500 per fortnight but it is ‘‘too little too late,’’ according to former POW Norm Eaton.

The payment will apply from September this year and will be in addition to current benefits available to former POWs.

Mr Eaton spent four years in German prison camps after being wounded and captured defending Crete.

The 91-year-old said while the money would help those who lived in rental accommodation and struggled financially, it had come 60 years too late.

‘‘When we came home from the prison camps we should have got recognition but we got no recognition,’’ Mr Eaton said.

‘‘I was diagnosed with depression in 1946 and they told me when they let me out of hospital ‘get on with it, it’s just something that happens in the war and you’ve got to get on with your life’.

‘‘Some people who are wrongfully imprisoned today get millions in comparison with those of us who spent the best years of our lives behind barbed wire.’’

Veterans’ Affairs Minister Warren Snowdon said the new payment was an important initiative to show the nation’s gratitude to a special group of Australians.

‘‘The way they looked out for their mates while in these camps reflects the Aussie spirit we are all so proud of,’’ Mr Snowdon said.

Bunbury RSL president Glen Stoddart welcomed news of the extra payment and said all POWs deserved ‘‘all they could get’’.

‘‘It’s going to help them out — things are tough for any pensioners,’’ Mr Stoddart said.

There were 122 surviving former POWs from World War II and Korea with a gold card in WA and 1050 nationally as at December 31 last year according to The Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

The payment will be funded in the 2011-12 Federal Budget and will cost $27.2 million over the next four years.