Veterans Affairs Committee on Dec. 4th, 2006

[Lieutenant-Colonel Lyndon Anderson]

It would be around 62,000.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

How many veterans hospitals do you have in Australia? Do you have specific hospitals, or do you have beds assigned, or do you have a combination of both, as we do?

[Roger Winzenberg]

The Australian government used to run what we called the Repatriation General Hospitals. We had one in each major province or state of Australia. In the early 1990s the government made the decision to sell them off.

In answer to your question, there is no such thing as a veteran hospital in Australia. Our health system is different from yours in that we have a combination of a public health system and a private health system; the Department of Veterans' Affairs has contracts with each of the states that allow veterans to access public hospitals, which are run by the state or provincial governments. We also just ran a national tender, actually, with the private hospital operators; we have commercial contracts with the private hospital operators that allow veterans to access private hospitals. In terms of percentages, I think 60% of veterans go to public hospitals and 40% to private hospitals.

The issue of selling the hospitals off occurred because they were in each capital city. Australia is a large country like yours, and veterans might live 300 or 400 kilometres away from the hospital and were quite often elderly. They wanted to go to hospitals within their own communities and not have to travel to the provincial city. It was better to contract with hospitals closer to where the veterans lived to get them service as close to their homes as we could.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you.

I have one last question for the lieutenant-colonel. In the war-like theatres Mr. Winzenberg mentioned, how many personnel would you have deployed right now offshore from Australia?

[Lieutenant-Colonel Lyndon Anderson]

At the moment it would be approximately just under 4,000.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

Normally we would go to the NDP, but they're not here, so now it goes back to the Conservative Party. You can carry on with some of the questions if you so wish.

Go ahead, Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

When I go through your report, Mr. Winzenberg, actually the turnaround amazes me. Dealing with the issues seems very efficient. The high rate of return in terms of getting a report done and getting it finalized is very good. Is that mainly because of personal initiative, or is there legislation in terms of timelines directing it so that when a complaint comes, there has to be a resolution or something to it at a certain particular time?

[Roger Winzenberg]

The question arises, and that has to do with the ombudsman office and how they do their work. All I can say is that certainly they have performance standards that they try to meet. However, how the ombudsman has arranged his office clearly is working, given the standards they're meeting.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

So there's likely some sort of standard within the legislation or within the mandate of the ombudsman to—

[Roger Winzenberg]

Not within the legislation. As I said, all Australian government agencies have to publish a performance or service charter in terms of how they're going to respond. So the ombudsman would have his, and that would be on his website and in his reports.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I just want to follow up with my colleague. He mentioned a little bit about the Veterans' Review Board that you have. I think you mentioned that it is appointed by the head of the review board. There's a process that makes the final appointment, by the head of that board.

[Roger Winzenberg]

The recommendations go from the principal member, who is the person who runs the board, to the minister, and the minister signs off on that.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Can you tell a little bit about the makeup of that board, who actually sits on it? Are there medical people, military people, legal people, or political people? Can you tell us a little bit about that?

[Roger Winzenberg]

They're a mixture. They normally try to get members with military experience. It's normally people who have some sort of legal experience. Often there are people who have some sort of medical experience. But I'm not sure that it has ever been mandated that you must have x number of people with these sorts of—

I think those three categories are what they try to cover, and they also try to make sure that they have a balance within those three.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Is there political representation on it? Do you know?

[Roger Winzenberg]

I can only tell you how the process works.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

That's fine.

I think that's all I have, Mr. Chairman, right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Anders]

We still have a few minutes in the Conservative time, if there's anybody else who would like to add another question on.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'll ask a question, if I may.

It's not really a question. I'm going to give you an opportunity to state an opinion, I suppose.

I asked earlier whether, after 30 years, you saw anything that you wished you had done differently or that you think could have been done better. If you could make any kind of a recommendation on avoiding a pitfall for us as we put this in place, I would very much appreciate your views on that.

Also, Lieutenant-Colonel, if you would like to add anything.

[Roger Winzenberg]

Certainly speaking as an Australian citizen, I'd say maybe the ombudsman's office hasn't had the public exposure that it may have had, in the sense that maybe more could be done to make citizens aware that there is that avenue of redress available.

In terms of how the government agencies deal directly with the ombudsman's office, there's a pretty good relationship and partnership and there's a sense that we're trying to get a common outcome for the citizen. I'm not sure whether this is the culture style of 30 years ago, but it's very much now about working together for a common outcome and not about worrying about somebody checking up on you. It's working together to improve the situation. That's probably the greatest advance we've seen over the 30 years.

In terms of the office and the legislation, I do understand that the ombudsman is reviewing the legislation. I would imagine that whatever recommendations come out of that review would be something that may be of interest to you. But that work is on full at the moment.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Do you have any idea when that will be available, when he will have completed that assessment?

[Roger Winzenberg]

No, I don't know.

[Betty Hinton, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

Lieutenant-Colonel, do you have any comment?

[Lieutenant-Colonel Lyndon Anderson]

None from me.