AVCAT's Background

With the end of the Australian share of the Agent Orange Funds in sight, the Trust considered its options and decided that it would be re-structured and re-named as the Australian Veterans Children Assistance Trust Limited (or AVCAT) effective from 1 July 2003.

AVCAT was to continue the educational assistance work of the Vietnam Veterans Trust, but for the children of the general Australian veteran community, rather than be confined to service in Vietnam.

AVCAT was duly established, under a new constitution for the Company, as an organization to provide a service to the Australian veteran community, as a legacy of the Agent Orange funds.

That service is the administration of bursaries and scholarships funded by others or by direct donations to AVCAT to provide financial to veterans' children in necessitous and deserving circumstances, for the costs of their full-time tertiary education.

The Constitution of AVCAT provides that the members of the Company are the principal ex service organizations which sponsored the Trust, namely the Australian Veterans' and Defence Service Council, the Legacy Coordinating Council, The Returned and Services League of Australia, the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia and the Vietnam Veterans Federation of Australia. Those organizations appoint the directors of the Company. The Minister to appoint the Chairman of AVCAT, and to receive, annually, extracts from the audited Financial Statements.

The Constitution's definition of veterans includes persons with prescribed service other than operational service and the definition of children includes grandchildren and, for memorial and like scholarships, children not related to a veteran.