Certainly I can talk about some strengths—and weaknesses.
The Australian system is a national health care program. The entire health care program is nationally administered and delivered through the state or territory governments, but it really is controlled at the federal level. The aged care system in Australia is also a federal system and is controlled and delivered federally. Veterans services is exactly the same.
The advantage is that you get consistency. You have a national health care system; you have a national pharmacare system. People have access to the same level of services, and regarding the costs of those services, it doesn't matter where you live.
But there are some disadvantages, areas where the Canadian system has advantage over the Australian. The Canadian system of delivering health care offers greater opportunities for innovation and development of best practice, because governments provincially can step outside of things that are happening in other provinces and develop their own programs.
While it's an advantage, what I don't see is that the good practices that occur are being translated to other provinces. Is anyone here from British Columbia? B.C. has a very good program for seniors called ActNow BC. I've spoken to people in six or seven different provinces and asked if they knew anything about ActNow BC. They have never heard of it, yet it's a very good program.
That's my point. You have a great system here that encourages innovation and good practice, but you don't share it; we don't learn from it. In Australia, we hinder innovation, because it's a totally federal system.