85 The Ombudsman Denies It Acted Corruptly (1): 7 November 2024

When I was in England after scattering Margaret’s ashes on the top of Croagh Patrick, I sent an email to Mr Iain Anderson,. 

Mr Anderson was appointed as the Commonwealth Ombudsman after the events that I have been describing in my blogs. 

Mr Anderson was not involved in the refusal of the Ombudsman to carry out the duties imposed on it by Parliament.  It is possible that Mr Anderson has been attempting to clean up the load of shit that he found at The Ombudsman Office when he started his duties as Ombudsman.  If so, I can only wish him good luck.  I think it is unlikely that he will be successful if he is attempting this.

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I finally received a reply to my October email at 10.41 am Adelaide time today, Thursday 7 November 2024.

I will publish shortly in full, the reply I received today from Ombudsman Mr Iain Anderson.

This is the email I sent to Iain Anderson on 11 October this year.

Dear Mr Anderson, I thought I should let you know that I have told the world in my latest blog posted on 10 October 2024 about the refusal of the Ombudsman to do its job and enforce the law that it is supposedly required to enforce under its legislation. I still have your letter in which you express doubt that the Ombudsman acted corruptly as defined in Commonwealth legislation.  I will continue to disagree with you on that claim.  I believe the relevant staff at the Ombudsman were obviously corrupt and that incompetence even on a massive scale cannot account for their refusal to do their statutory duty. My beautiful wife Margaret died on 22 August 2023 and I still mourn deeply. Margaret might now be dead, but I have certainly NOT forgotten the behaviour of HCF or the other health insurers or the Ombudsman. I want you to know that I am completely exposing the heartless conduct of HCF in relation to Lift Cancer Care Services – and undoubtedly other health service providers - over the period of 3 years that HCF and the other insurers refused to obey the law. My blogs can be read on my website hankinredden.au They should make HCF, NIB, Teachers Health and the Ombudsman squirm at their own appalling conduct, but I have no illusions that this will ever happen. I have not and will not forget the appalling behaviour of the Ombudsman.   John Hankin Widower of Margaret Redden

In his letter received today (5 November 2024), Mr Anderson asserts that the Ombudsman did not act corruptly in its handling of my numerous complaints about the refusal of the health insurers to obey the law.

Specifically, Mr Anderson says this.

I recognise you do not agree with my views. You have the right to express your disagreement, including by making public statements on your blog and publishing correspondence to you from this Office. You also have the right to refer your views to the National Anti-Corruption Commission, if you wish to allege corrupt behaviour.

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On 6 January 2023 when Margaret was still alive but hovering near death and in dreadful pain, I wrote to Mr Anderson.  By this stage, I had forced the health insurers to start obeying the law, but I hoped the newly appointed Ombudsman might be interested in performing the difficult job of trying to ensure that his government agency at least tried to obey the law.  Amongst other things, I said this to Mr Anderson.

In my correspondence, I made clear that a criminal scam is being perpetuated by the health insurers in relation to Type C certificates.  I made clear that the Health Department has known (at least) that something “amiss” was occurring for some years now and has done nothing to bring the scam to an end and that there was a clear whiff of corruption. In my correspondence, I also complained about the blurring incompetence of the Ombudsman.  I also pointed out that there is clear evidence that crimes have been committed by the health insurers and that these crimes must be reported to the relevant law enforcement authority.  I believe that the circumstances I have uncovered certainly amount to serious breaches of the law and that the duty of the Ombudsman (and the Department of Health for that matter) is to report those breaches to the proper authorities. The appropriate law enforcement authority should also be asked to examine the possibility of corruption within the Health Department and the Ombudsman.

I also asked Iain Anderson to “self report” The Ombudsman – the government agency, not Mr Anderson personally – to relevant law enforcement authorities and to the then recently established National Anti Corruption Commission.  I am quietly confident that the Australian Federal Police were NOT asked to investigate what had happened and that no report was ever made to the NACC on behalf of the Ombudsman.

I said this to Iain Anderson on 6 January 2023.

It seems certain to me that neither the Health Department nor the Ombudsman have ever bothered to test the claims by the health insurers that the Type Ce certificates were legally inadequate.  This could have been done very easily by asking to see the certificates.  Compounding this appalling failure (was it really simple incompetence?) is the complete failure of the Ombudsman to even ask me for further information when it was clear I could have provided further information.  In my correspondence I pointed out the impossibility of “investigating” whether anyone has breached the law if the precise requirements of the law are not examined.  I am convinced that no one in the Ombudsman has ever bothered to examine the relevant legislation in relation to Type C certificates. The National Anti Corruption Commission has now been established by legislation but has not yet commenced operation.  As already said in my correspondence, I certainly intend to ask the NACC to conduct an in depth investigation of this whole dismal affair.  I will ask the NACC to carefully examine the relationship between the Department of Health, the Ombudsman and the health insurers. I recommend that if the Ombudsman wishes to minimise its own reputational damage, it should “self report” what has happened to the NACC at the earliest opportunity.  Self reporting might perhaps indicate some good faith by the Ombudsman despite everything that has happened. I presume that like all previous correspondence to the Ombudsman, this letter will be ignored, but I live in hope.  Sometimes miracles happen.

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My letter to Iain Anderson on 6 January 2023 was the last piece of correspondence I was able to write about the unlawful behaviour of the health insurers.  From then onwards until I watched Margaret die in Intensive Care at 3.16 am on Tuesday 22 August 2023, all of my waking hours were devoted to trying to do the impossible - keep Margaret alive.