The $30 million compensation deal for Vietnam veterans sprayed with the defoliant agent orange has been warmly received by the Returned Services Association.
But while some victims and their families are in line for payouts of up to $40,000 some will get little or nothing.
One News spoke with a family who say three generations have been affected but they may not get a cent.
Infantryman John Jennings served two tours of duty in Vietnam when he was in his early 20s. He says his unit was sprayed with a chemical used to rob the enemy of cover and was told not to worry about it.
"On the 9th of September 1967 our unit was briefed we were going to be crop dusted - and we were," says Jennings.
The chemical was agent orange and Jennings says it robbed him of sight in one eye and caused severe skin rashes.
"With the number of Vietnam vets who died of agent orange-related cancer this has almost been mass murder by neglect."
But Jennings says the damage caused by the chemical did not stop at him. His daughter Marakech was born with heart and lung deformities and is waiting for a transplant.
"I had chronic endometriosis that required a hysterectomy at 22 which is a massive thing to deal with in your early 20s and looking for a life partner and not being able to have children," says Marakech who has also had two strokes.
And John says the damage caused by agent orange has now hit a third generation - his grandson Sebastien was born with cysts around his eyes.
John Jennings had hoped today would end his battle for compensation for the suffering the experience caused him and his family.
But the family is likely to receive little or no compensation. Marakech says there is nothing in the package for her.
"There's nothing in it for me and a lot of other children affected."
The government will only pay out for certain conditions that have been linked to agent orange by the US authorities, but not the heart and lung disease suffered by Marakech.
John Jennings says it is unacceptable to be taking advice from the US and Australia who were the perpetrators of the spraying of agent orange.
"Technically, legally and morally it could be seen as a war crime," says Jennings.
For the family the $30 million package designed to consign the agent orange scandal to history has opened old wounds. For them the battle continues.
