Speirs and Repatriation Commission

[2011] AATA 240

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2011] AATA 240

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No   2010/0482

VETERANS’ APPEALS DIVISION		)
Re		KEITH SPEIRS

Applicant

And REPATRIATION COMMISSION   

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal M J Carstairs, Senior Member

Date11 April 2011

PlaceHervey Bay

Decision The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.

.....................[sgd].......................

Senior Member 

VETERANS’ AFFAIRS – benefits and entitlements – no reasonable hypothesis of a relationship between the applicant’s anxiety disorder and his operational service – decision under review affirmed

Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 (Cth), s 9

Border v Repatriation Commission [2010] FCA 1430

Repatriation Commission v Bey (1997) 149 ALR 721

Repatriation Commission v Deledio(1998) 49 ALD 193

Repatriation Commission v Hill [2002] FCAFC 192

Stoddart v Repatriation Commission (2003) 197 ALR 283

REASONS FOR DECISION

11 April 2011   M J Carstairs, Senior Member

1. The applicant, Mr Keith Speirs, enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy on 9 February 1964 and later rendered operational service during several discrete periods from February 1966 to May 1967. Mr Speirs took his discharge in February 1974. Mr Speirs suffers from two medical conditions, anxiety disorder and irritable bowel syndrome, which he contends are “war-caused” as that expression is used in s 9 of the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 (Cth) (“the Act”).

THE ISSUES

2. In order to decide under the Act whether medical conditions are war-caused the Tribunal applies a series of steps as set out by the Federal Court in Repatriation Commission v Deledio (1998) 49 ALD 183. Applying that process, I must identify any applicable Statement of Principles (“SoP”) and consider whether any hypothesis raised by the material conforms with one or more of the factors set out in the SoP as it applies to the claimed condition.[1]   

[1]   Repatriation Commission v Hill [2002] FCAFC 192

3.      The matters not in issue in Mr Speirs’ case, because of concessions made by the respondent, were:

(a)matters going to diagnosis, it being agreed now that Mr Speirs’ medical condition is an “anxiety disorder not otherwise specified”; and

(b)the onset of this anxiety disorder being within 5 years of events identified by Mr Speirs as being stressful to him, which is a timeframe required by the SoP.

4.      I have satisfied myself that these concessions are appropriate in the light of the medical evidence now to hand.  The evidence, as now agreed between Dr G Antoce[2] and Dr S Jenkins[3], is that Mr Speirs suffered, and has suffered since about 1966-1967, with the symptoms of an “anxiety disorder not otherwise specified”.

[2]   Exhibit R2

[3]   T4 pp 51-53

5.      In practical terms these concessions mean that the issues may be conveniently confined within factor 6(a)(ii) of the SoP for Anxiety Disorder (Instrument 101 of 2007[4]), applying to a veteran’s operational service, and requiring that the veteran has experienced:

[4]   As amended (immaterially) by Statements of Principles No 42 of 2010 and 15 of 2011.

… a category 1A stressor within the five years before the clinical onset of anxiety disorder.