VIDEO: Defenceless - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Four Corners exposes how, behind the flashy marketing campaigns, companies are squeezing veterans and taxpayers to maximise profits.

Australian veterans put their lives at risk serving their country, now their lives are at risk in a system that's failing them.

There are more than half a million veterans across the country, many of them living with the physical and mental scars of their service, and the Department of Veterans' Affairs is responsible for their welfare.

In 2022 the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans Suicide found delays in processing claims was causing harm to veterans. In response, the government invested more than half a billion dollars to clear the backlog and improve services, opening the door to private for-profit companies to move in, and move in they did.

This week on Four Corners, reporter Elise Worthington exposes how behind the flashy marketing campaigns companies are squeezing veterans and taxpayers to maximise profits and investigates the lucrative business model enriching shareholders at the expense of vulnerable ex-servicemen and women.

From dispensing medicinal cannabis without seeing a GP to charging exorbitant fees for writing reports, sharing private medical information, taking a cut of compensation claims and billing DVA for services that weren't provided, this failure to regulate predatory billing targeting veterans is costing the Australian public millions.

Four Corners: Defenceless is reported by Elise Worthington and goes to air Monday, October 5 at 8:30pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.