This study examined the extent of potentially inappropriate medicine, as defined by explicit criteria, dispensed to Australian veterans using the Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Pharmacy Claims database. Twenty-one per cent of the 192,363 veterans aged 70 years, with an eligible gold card, were dispensed at least one potentially inappropriate medicine in the first 6 months of 2005. Long-acting benzodiazepines, amitriptyline, amiodarone, oxybutynin and doxepin were the medicines most commonly implicated. Strategies to support quality prescribing of medicines to the elderly must include a focus on these medicines.