Lawyers pursuing claims with no merit are clogging the repatriation system, absorbing costs that should go to genuine veterans and dependants, according to the author of a history of the repatriation system launched yesterday.
Canberra author Jacqui Rees said, “”Legalism has so skewed the system that in the last financial year, for example, the cost of only 1696 repatriation appeals to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was $27 million. . . . The Veterans’ Review Board, which does not involve lawyers cost $6.5 million for the same time and dealt with 7500 appellants.”
She is co-author with journalism academic Clem Lloyd of (ital) The Last Shilling (end ital) which was launched by the Governor-General, Bill Hayden at the Australian War Memorial.
She said it might be understandable if the tribunal were delivering justice in the face of a hostile Department of Veterans’ Affairs, but this was not the case. Rather it was giving benefits where they were not deserved.
She cited the example of the tribunal granting benefits to a man who had served seven months in Australia claiming for ill health caused by smoking when he was 74.
“”Such instances, few in number but large in impact, are an anathema to most vets and their families,” she said. “”Repatriation should be rid of a legal overlay which ties up the system in pursuit of claims of little or no merit and which take up money that should go to vets and their dependants who genuinely have paid the price of war.”
Their names were being sullied by the excesses.
Ms Rees called for a review of the system outside the usual budgetary and patch-up legislative amendment process. She called also for a return to the vocational training schemes that were successful after the two world wars.
There were now more than 600,000 people eligible for repatriation benefits.
Ms Rees said, however, that the Repatriation system was a matter of justified national pride considering the 300,000 World War I vets, 500,000 World War II vets and vets of other wars and their dependants. It had been a pioneer in several areas of public administration. It had enjoyed bi-partisan political support and protection since World War I.
Mr Hayden said there had been an “”enduring spirit of gratitude and responsibility with which the Australian people over the years have accepted their duty to maintain where necessary our returned service men and women and their dependants.”.
The title of (ital)The Last Shilling (ital) comes from a 1919 cartoon based on Prime Minister Andrew Fisher saying at the beginning of World War I that Australia would support the British Empire to the last man and the last shilling. The cartoon had a decrepit vet at the department counter with the caption: “”1990 or thereabouts. Repatriating the last man with the last shilling.”
The book is published by Melbourne University Press with sponsorship from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Ms Rees had praise for former department head Derek Volker and other departmental officers who had provided help and information but had allowed the authors complete independence.