Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Commonwealth parliament’s report on the inquiry into health funding, entitled The blame game, tabled in the Australian parliament today by my colleague from Queensland the honourable Alex Somlyay, member for Fairfax, who is chair of the committee. At the outset let me thank him and the deputy chair, the member for Shortland, for their leadership and stewardship of this committee in the last 18 months.

I took a deep interest in this committee coming from Queensland, where health was very much a political issue in the last election. It is certainly an issue in the Ryan electorate, where the Wesley Hospital is located. Apart from wearing my hat as the member for Ryan, wearing my hat as a citizen of this country I took a deep interest in the direction of this committee. I am very pleased that the findings of the inquiry were submitted today and have wide support from members of both the government and the opposition.

Of course, we know that health has a very unique place in this country—it is an issue that really affects every Australian very directly. Like education, it is one of those issues that seem to exist at every election and it is certainly an issue that concerns every citizen of this country. Health is a complex matter. It is an expensive matter. It is a bureaucratic matter. It is a sensitive matter. It is overlapping and it is also cumbersome. But, at the same time, our health system is very professional. It is world class. It has amongst its practitioners very dedicated and compassionate people—people who have dedicated their lives to the health profession and the allied health profession and to serving their fellow human beings.

My brother is a doctor—he is a neurosurgeon. My sister is completing her medical degree. So I am aware, as an Australian citizen, of some of the issues that they bring to my attention. It is important that the views and experiences of people who are at the coalface of the medical system—who are actually at the pointy, sharp end of the health system—are taken into account by governments in our country. The Australian health system, as I touched on, is a world-class health system. It is generally very highly regarded. It does have amongst the best practitioners in the world. They can certainly hold their heads high for their dedication, passion and supreme levels of skill.

In speaking on this report, I want to refer to a couple of matters that might be of interest in particular to my constituents in the Ryan electorate. Before I go on to that, I want to say that the committee received 159 submissions, and 59 exhibits were accepted as evidence to the inquiry. The committee was resolved to conduct an inquiry into health funding back in March 2005. We received submissions from all states and territories and from groups and individuals residing in all parts of our country. Five state and territory governments made submissions—the ACT, Victoria, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and South Australia. The committee welcomed the contributions from these governments, but I also must say that, as a Queensland based federal member, I was disappointed that the state government of Queensland—as well as New South Wales, but my particular area of interest is Queensland—regrettably, declined to provide a submission to the inquiry or to appear at any of the public hearings. There was considerable media coverage on the health area and the health portfolio in Queensland given some of the terrible incidents and stories that have been revealed in the media in the last couple of years in relation to what happened at Bundaberg Hospital.

I am pleased that the member for Hinkler happens to be the chamber with me, because, as I understand it, he sat on the board of Bundaberg Hospital for some 15 years and, sadly for Bundaberg hospital, his time on that board was terminated when the Goss Labor government came to power in Queensland in 1989. There has never been any suggestion that, during the coalition years of government in Queensland, the hospital suffered from or went through any terrible periods of time with maladministration. Of course, the board should be accountable and take responsibility for the stewardship of the hospital. Certainly there has never been any suggestion of any outrageous cover-up.

The structure of this report is loosely aligned around the terms of reference. The committee has developed a number of key themes from the evidence that was received from those who, in person or in writing, gave submissions. As I said, the health system is very complex and any changes to funding arrangements need to take a holistic approach because of the nature of the health system and the mutually dependent and complementary nature of different parts of the health system in delivering health services for the consumers of Australia—no less so than our education system, where there is great overlap, buck-passing, blame shifting and cost shifting, and that also seems to be the case in health.

I want to focus in particular on the private sector as a key stakeholder in the health system. It is a very important stakeholder in our health system, in our health architecture, and it must continue to be so. It must interact more with the public sector because both have a very crucial role to play in providing quality care. It needs to be better integrated to take advantage of the things that it does well, with the skills and the experience that its employees bring to health delivery and health management. But, at the same time, no system or sector is perfect and it can always tie in better with the public sector.

Funding for health needs to be reorientated to support a system that focuses on wellness rather than illness, on prevention rather than cure. Members of parliament from both the government and the opposition on this committee have alluded to that. I certainly very strongly support models that promote wellness rather than illness. We need to try to address the enormous cost of health in this country by trying to educate our fellow Australians to live a more healthy lifestyle and be very conscientious of their habits, in terms of how they exercise, whether they exercise and also their diet. That is very important.

I am certainly happy to put my hand up as someone who is probably not as prudent in an exercise regime as I should be, compared to the days before my election to the federal parliament. It is something that is very important. Whenever I get the opportunity to visit younger Australians at schools in the Ryan electorate, I certainly take the opportunity to encourage them to take care of their health, live and eat healthily and wear their school hats in the hot Queensland sunshine, because we do not want our kids to be exposed to the sun any more than they need to be.

The community’s knowledge and understanding about the Australian health system need to be improved to clarify the expectations about the probable trend towards rising private health insurance premiums, the out-of-pocket costs and the waiting times for treatment. In conclusion, I was delighted to be a part of this committee and to contribute where I was able. I touched on some of the points that colleagues have made about responsibility to aspects of the health system. Opposition members gave the example of dental health care and financial responsibility for that. At the end of the day, we live in a federation between a Commonwealth government and state governments, and that entails a division of responsibility and accountability. Hopefully, this report will address that and try to take that problem out of our healthcare system.

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