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

I understand that the member for Paterson is very sensitive about his failure to get the previous government to fund a PET machine in the Hunter until just before the last election. What I am talking about is the overall delivery of health services to people in Australia and the recommendations of The blame game. This report made a number of very important recommendations, which the government of the day, the Howard government, failed to respond to. It made a recommendation that this parliament develop and adopt a national health agenda. It made recommendations that we identify policy and funding principles and initiatives. It also identified the fact that there was a chronic shortage of health professionals and doctors in Australia.

While the Howard government refused to respond to this report, the Rudd government will. In the policy which it took to the last election, it gave an undertaking that it would invest $2 billion in a national health and hospital reform plan. This is quite different from what the Howard government did—they actually ripped money out of hospitals. This reform funding program will include additional funding to state and territory governments if they achieve agreed reform milestones, similar to the system of the competition policy payments designed to reward states and improve their performance.

This is a different approach to health. This is an approach that stops the blame game. This approach brings the states, territories and the Commonwealth together. So instead of standing up in this parliament and blaming the states for the problems, instead of standing up in state parliament and blaming the Commonwealth for the problems, we are joining together the states and the Commonwealth to work for the delivery of quality health services to the people of Australia.

I can speak with some authority on this, having previously been a member of the state government when there was a coalition government in power in Canberra. At that time, I made a speech stating where we identified problems at the Commonwealth level. I have sat here and heard speaker after speaker blame the states for all the problems that exist with health. What happens? Absolutely nothing. All that happens is that the member who stands up in whatever parliament feels good and puts out a media release, but the people of Australia, who we are representing in this parliament, miss out on the quality health services they need. We need more doctors. We need to ensure that the people of Australia get the type of health care they deserve. We do not need any more governments using weasel words to get away from the fact that they need to make sure that the money for health goes to the delivery of health services, rather than promoting their own health agenda.

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