Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing into health funding has been aptly named The blame game. The one thing that became apparent throughout the inquiry was that there was always the potential to blame someone else for problems in the health system.

The committee believes that the single most important thing that could be delivered to the Australian people is a transparent, accountable health system, and that would ensure the equitable delivery of health services to all Australians, no matter where they live or what their financial circumstances are. Health services should be delivered according to need and should be about what a person needs; they should not be about what they can pay or where they live. The message given to the committee can be best summed up by an opening quote from Associate Professor Green. She said:

... when we are overseas and get sick, where do we want to be? Almost without exception people want to come to Australia. All of us who have travelled to other countries would almost always say that you want to go home. So whilst I think we are actually very harsh on our own health service—I think we are very critical; I am not sure why, but we are—in fact, it stacks up against just about any health service in the world.

She went on to say:

... Australia does not need to spend more money on health. We should be spending it much more effectively and efficiently ...

I think she was making a very good point there. We have a wonderful health system in Australia, but we need to make it even better.

This report is a unanimous one, despite the fact that the committee members approached it from very different philosophical positions. We believe that, by delivering a unanimous report to the parliament, there is a very good chance that the government will pick up on some of the outstanding recommendations in the report. I will turn very briefly to some of those recommendations.

I will turn first to recommendation No. 1, which states that we should develop a national health agenda. I think that became very apparent to all members of the committee quite early in the piece. We need to have a national health agenda that all levels of government and all people involved in the health system can work towards.

The next recommendation I will touch on briefly deals with dental care—a subject that came up a number of times when we were taking evidence. Turning to the body of the report, it says:

The provision of dental care in a timely manner can significantly affect a person’s quality of life and future health costs.

At 3.114, the report states that dental health should be treated no differently to other health services. Recommendation No. 3 of the report states:

The Australian Government should supplement state and territory funding for public dental services so that reasonable access standards for appropriate services are maintained ...

I think any member of this House would report that this is one of the most important and prevalent issues to be raised with us in our electorates. I think that is an outstanding recommendation and one that I hope the government will pick up on.

I will turn now to the sustainability of our health workforce. Terry Clout, CEO of the Hunter New England Health Service, which is in my area, pointed out that, if you are in metropolitan Sydney, the further away you are from the Harbour Bridge, the more you are impacted upon by the shortage of trained doctors, nurses and allied health staff. Overwhelmingly throughout this inquiry it was brought out in the evidence we received that there is a chronic skills shortage across all health professions, be it in doctors, nurses, allied health workers or dentists; there is a skills shortage within the community.

Terry Clout goes on to point out that the further you move away from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the greater that skills shortage becomes. I think that the recommendations in the report should be taken up.

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