Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, being a heretic about these matters, my mobile phone is switched off and in my office, but thank you for the general advice. They are ergonomically designed to mark the low-water mark on the beach, as far as I am concerned. Nevertheless, apparently they are a tool of the trade these days.

I am delighted to support the best friend that Medicare has ever had—the Howard government—and its efforts to continue the revolution of our health services in Australia. I apologise to the member for Gellibrand for being so bold and enthusiastic as to try and prompt her, because a lot of what she has just had ambitions about is actually happening, and particularly in the good state of Queensland. I have been to Greenslopes Private Hospital, and I recommend that she does the same. It is now no longer in my electorate of Moreton; it is in the electorate of the Leader of the Opposition. On the occasions when he actually visits his electorate, he should go to Greenslopes and take the member for Gellibrand with him. They will find that the Greenslopes Private Hospital is doing all of these sorts of things. In fact, it is even doing operations online, helping GPs in far-flung parts of Queensland with technical advice when the need arises. So it is absolutely true that a lot of that is going on.

The only point I would make to members opposite is that they should not listen just to Telstra when they want to talk about broadband. Telstra is banging on about stealing from the Future Fund, and the Labor Party want to go along for the ride and steal from my children’s and grandchildren’s potential tax take, to try to pay for things today. I simply say to the member for Gellibrand: well done and thank you, but you just have to understand that Telstra is not the only provider of telecommunications. Embarrassingly for the Labor Party, in Queensland the state government have their own internet broadband system which they have installed because of Queensland’s regionalisation and enormous diversity. So universities, hospitals and so forth are linked through the Queensland government system. But if you talk only to Telstra, you will not hear any of that.

Let us talk about the Health Insurance Amendment (Diagnostic Imaging Accreditation) Bill 2007. It is one of the key, quality areas of our health sector. The bill seeks to ensure the accreditation of these practices and to ensure that the consumers of these services are able to be certain of the professional standards which, in the main, are delivered. Radiologists and other people involved in this sector, because of their own professional and organisational ethics, have to deliver quality services to their patients, and they have to deliver to the caregivers the sort of advice which can come from a variety of diagnostic imaging services. I refer to MRIs all the way through to a variety of dental and other services such as computed tomography, mammography, the interventional radiology services and general X-ray and ultrasound.

These are the things that are covered by this bill. They include the sorts of practices that need to be registered under this accreditation: private specialists; radiologists; nuclear imaging or radiation oncology practices; specialist radiology, nuclear imaging or radiology oncology departments or other departments in private and public hospitals; medical practices such as sports medicine clinics; cardiology practices; vascular practices and laboratories; orthopaedic or urology practices; general practices; and chiropractic and dental practices. These practices will be asked to sign up to this accreditation to provide the sort of consumer certainty that we want and in order to be eligible for Medicare benefits.

In the budget this week the government expanded the range of Medicare benefits available in dealing with things such as dental health. To ensure that people who have been unable to get dental services can now get those services, the government is now providing, in round figures, up to $2,000 of assistance through Medicare. That in itself is a testament to the fact that the state health systems, in particular dental health systems, have been spectacular failures. The Queensland system has been brought up a few times. The great number of people who have come to me over the years and said, ‘I have been waiting in a queue for five or seven years for my teeth to be fixed through the dental services of the PA Hospital or the QE2 Hospital,’ are of course very dismayed by the way in which the Queensland government talks a lot about dental health but does not deliver on it. Yet again we have the Australian government coming to the rescue—although we will be keeping the pressure on the state authorities to maintain their role—and through Medicare providing the means to look after those with chronic health problems as a result of failing to have their dental problems fixed.

Part and parcel of that are the services that are going to be provided by radiologists in the dental sector. That sort of program in dental services, an additional $377.6 million over four years, will assist 200,000 people around Australia, and it is absolutely important, as they go to their GPs or their dentists, that the advice they get based on the particular imaging that is required is absolutely correct. That is why this bill, as the opposition have conceded, contains a great set of measures, a quality set of measures—measures that will ensure that patients receive safe, quality radiology services. That Medicare funded services will meet industry standards and consumer expectations is further proof of the way in which this government continues its role of strengthening Medicare.

We know that state and territory government legislation regulates the licensing of X-rays and other radiation equipment in a way similar to the way in which they register medical practitioners and other health professionals. The accreditation standards being introduced in this bill will require practices to comply with existing state and territory registration and licensing laws and provide evidence of compliance to the accreditation provider. It will be in the form of current registration certificates and licences. I know that the vast majority of practices and the vast majority of health-care professionals in the system are already providing those safe, quality radiology services, but some may need to review and possibly update aspects of their service delivery to ensure compliance. We do not expect that anybody is going to need radical changes in their practices.

I am very confident as I look at the list of professional organisations that have said that the government’s bill has it right and that they have no objections to its structure, and the various signatories to diagnostic imaging memorandums of understanding which have been consulted proves this point. If MOUs have been signed by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists, the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association, the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand, the Australian and New Zealand Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and they all agree that this is a sensible set of measures providing consumer assurance, professional standards and enhancement of the reputation of the sector then there is every reason why we should afford this bill a speedy passage.

The bill amends the Health Insurance Act 1973, which governs the payment of Medicare benefits. The legislation establishes a head of power and framework to enable the introduction of this scheme. It will allow the Minister for Health and Ageing to establish the scheme and approve accreditation providers by legislative instrument. The instrument will deal with some of the operative details of the scheme, including the standards and processing details. The member for Gellibrand, on behalf of the opposition, wants to see all of those now. That detail will be presented to the parliament at an appropriate time, as it should be, once the details of the scheme are fully developed. It is being done in a consultative way, not in a central planning, politburo way, as those opposite seem to yearn for and would probably impose if they were ever elected to government. It is a matter of working with professional bodies, recognising that these professional bodies have a capacity and are delivering on that capacity, that they have a responsibility and equally that they have a right to participate in the development of this process.

The government has further strengthened Medicare in the last couple of days with announcements in the budget, and after-hours GP services will improve with the $71.8 million funding increase for Medicare rebates. Many of those services rely on radiology to be available in a number of creative ways. It is not just about being a mouse click away; it is about those services being available literally 24/7. When I look at the way in which, in my electorate, the Health for All people at Acacia Ridge are operating their services and Dr Shabbir Hussein and his family are operating clinics in places like Underwood and Kuraby, I see we are getting more out of our GP services in the southern suburbs of Brisbane than ever before. It is further proof that there is a lot of confidence in the medical system when private individuals, doctors and their associates are willing to invest in themselves and expand their commitment not simply to operating between nine and five but to being there seven days a week and, in many cases, literally from before breakfast to midnight with an ambition to operate 24 hours a day. Services such as radiology must follow the pathway.

There is also no doubt that we need more radiologists, and the signals being sent by this legislation will continue to endorse the professionalism that is already stamped there and will show that radiology and the practice of radiology will be well supported by the government as a result of taxpayers’ money being deployed in this way.

A decade ago MRI was new technology. A decade ago MRIs were things that you used to have to struggle to get to. I had a lot of arguments about MRIs a decade ago with one of Minister Abbott’s senior advisers, Terry Barnes, in the days of Dr Wooldridge—I do not want to embarrass him—and Dr Wooldridge recognised MRI as a way forward and as a sensible piece of technology that would be assisted by government under Medicare. That has been further enhanced this week with three new Medicare eligible MRI units. The fact we have now gone from just a handful of MRI units to 115 units around the country means people are going to be able to access a variety of these diagnostic imaging services in a variety of different places—far more places than ever before.

This bill ensures that during that amazing enhancement—this massive additional roll-out, this urging of the sector to roll it out even further and seek private capital to invest in themselves to provide more services to people—the enthusiastic response is underpinned by credibility, quality and professionalism, things which people in this sector automatically aspire to and easily relate to. The matters contained within this diagnostic imaging accreditation bill will ensure that consumers can be very confident not only that the government is going to back them through Medicare but also that the quality of the services they receive will be most profound. I commend the bill to the House.

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