Medicinal cannabis company offered 'kickbacks' to military advocates for veteran referrals

Half-a-billion dollars of DVA budget lost to fraud

We decided we'd put in a 5 per cent sort of kickback … monthly in perpetuity. So for every person you get on, you've got them for life basically," the representative says.

"The advocates that we've got on who've referred … one of them's getting around $17,000 a month. And it's getting higher and higher as they add more and more people on."

A medicinal cannabis company has been offering thousands of dollars in financial "kickbacks" to military advocates in exchange for referring veterans to its services, a 7.30 investigation has uncovered.

Under the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, receiving financial incentives for referrals may be unlawful.

7.30 has obtained a recording of a telephone call in which a sales representative from telehealth company VeteranCann offers a military advocate a 5 per cent commission "in perpetuity" for every veteran who signs up to an ongoing medicinal cannabis prescription.

"You can make the offer to them and say, 'Look guys, if you've thought about medicinal cannabis, it's easy, just click on this link,'" the representative says in the recording.

Mr Armstrong said he provided the recording to the DVA.

"It's incredibly brazen," he said.

"It's not just exploiting veterans, it's also exploiting the Australian taxpayer. It's exploiting DVA, it's removing the integrity of the process. It's also putting veterans in a very vulnerable position."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-24/medicinal-cannabis-company-offered-kickback-for-veteran-referral/106354294