Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to comment on the terrific contribution made by the member for Bonner, whose electorate is about three away from mine in south-east Queensland. I rise to speak in support of the Health Care (Appropriation) Amendment Bill 2008. This bill seeks to amend the Health Care (Appropriation) Act 1998, which provides the legislative basis and the standing appropriation for financial assistance under the Australian healthcare agreements and permits the Minister for Health and Ageing to determine grants of financial assistance to the state and territory governments. The proposed amendment will bring into effect the Commonwealth’s COAG commitment made on 26 March 2008 to give $1 billion to the state governments to relieve pressure on public hospitals for 2008-09. This bill’s passage will ensure that $500 million of the $1 billion will be received by the states and territories before the end of this financial year. Further, the terms and conditions of the current healthcare agreements will be extended for one year to allow for new agreements to be negotiated with the states.

Since the election of the Rudd Labor government we have been working hard to relieve the pressure on our nation’s public hospitals and pursue our long-term plans for healthcare reform. Our hospital system reform is underway. Those on the opposite side of the chamber leave us with a legacy of 11 years of neglect in the area of health funding. Instead of investing in health care and improving our hospital system, they pursued a policy of blame-shifting and politicking. The Rudd government is resolved to end this approach and instead work to improve our national health system and take a national approach. We understand there are many challenges when it comes to long-term planning for our health system, including the duplication of services, overlap and blame-shifting, an ageing population and long-term workforce planning. Only the Rudd Labor government understands that our national health and hospital system is in need of radical surgery. The challenge to improve our national health system is not just an issue for next week, next month or even this year; it is a challenge for the decade ahead. It is a challenge the Rudd Labor government will take up for the good of the nation, because only the Rudd Labor government is committed to doing the task.

The $1 billion injection comprises the $500 million additional new funding plus indexation of the previous Commonwealth allocation for 2007-08. The amendment in this legislation will appropriate funds to continue the payment of healthcare grants to the states in 2008-09 while the new national healthcare agreements are negotiated. COAG agreed that the new agreements would be signed in December 2008 and commence on 1 July 2009. This $1 billion injection into our public health system is a significant investment. It is the first step on the long road to rebuilding our health system after 11 years of neglect and funding cuts, and it reverses the trend of decline under the previous coalition government.

We have seen enormous investment by this Rudd Labor government in a whole range of areas, including the funds we have allocated nationally for depression. It is an issue which has affected a lot of people in my constituency, and they have raised this issue with me. They have commended the government for the plan that we have, with $55 million allocated. Also we have allocated $249 million over five years to the National Cancer Plan to improve diagnosis and treatment, including new cancer centres to service city, regional and rural patients. This is particularly important to me because currently my father is in hospital with not just primary cancer but also secondary cancer. My family in particular has been the beneficiary of tremendous professionalism by those dedicated doctors and nurses in my area who have cared for my father in this time of great family need. I want to commend them in parliament today for the love and affection they have shown my father particularly and note that this government is committed to helping them to help others.

I commend the government for the $10 billion Health and Hospitals Fund to support strategic investments in health and the $600 million we have allocated to cutting elective surgery waiting lists. I also want to thank the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing for the $275 million allocated over five years to deliver 31 GP superclinics across the country. This is very important in my area, where there is only one doctor for every 1,609 people living in the region of Ipswich and West Moreton. And you can wait up to two years to get the public health system to see your teeth. There is $780 million over five years to slash public dental waiting lists, which is a welcome relief for the people of Blair.

I list these health commitments because they are substantial and significant. They demonstrate the government’s commitment to health. They demonstrate that the government, only six months in office, is focused on improving the health system, particularly in my area. I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing for the commitments they have made locally for a GP superclinic in Ipswich and for the $300,000 in funding—at $100,000 per annum—for the after-hours clinic at Ipswich General Hospital. I am pleased to have secured that money during the election campaign. That will go a long way, and I commend the work of the dedicated staff at that clinic. It is tremendous because, as we all know, children and other people do not get sick just between 9 am and 5 pm; it happens at all times of the day and night. As a parent of two daughters, I know that I have had the experience on many occasions of children being sick after hours.

Australians were also sick and tired of the blame game by the former coalition bickering with the states to smokescreen their neglect of the health system. This legislation marks the end of that. Instead of engaging in political games, this government is committed to delivering better health services across the country. Only this government understands the need for serious negotiations with the states about how to reform the health system. Issues like preventable hospital admissions, pressure on our emergency departments and how we treat our older and ageing Australians are future challenges the health system will face, and how we will deal with those issues will say  much about our attitude of compassion, caring and commitment to those less fortunate than ourselves. The former coalition government lost interest in pursuing these big issues at a time when they really needed to be investing in and re-equipping our health system for the challenges of the future. The Rudd Labor government is aware that the Australian public is heartily sick and tired of buck passing. They are sick and tired of politicians using the health system as a method by which they can blame one another. It is not a constructive way to mend the health system. Blame shifting does not help someone who is sick, it does not help someone find a doctor, it does not help someone find an aged-care bed or a specialist and it does not reduce the health waiting lists.

I strongly support this bill, which I think will do a lot to help our people locally in Blair. I had the privilege of serving on the Ipswich and West Moreton Health Community Council for many years and saw the activity statements and the waiting list issues. Every month I would go to those meetings and I would see the challenges, and I raised issues on many occasions with the district manager. On each and every occasion it was, ‘We need more funding, we need more funding.’ I chaired health reference committees in the rural areas of my electorate. I visited hospitals like the Boonah Hospital and the Laidley Hospital, not just the Ipswich General Hospital—which is a fantastic hospital also. And people cried out at those health reference committees for further government funding. The Rudd government’s increased expenditure on health demonstrates its commitment to those hospitals in my electorate.

Since 2000 the coalition government removed $1 billion from Commonwealth-state funding to our hospitals, but those opposite seem to be suffering from a certain political amnesia. I listened to the contributions made by the member for O’Connor and the member for North Sydney: it is almost like they have forgotten about their failings in funding for public hospitals. In fact, during the 2007 election campaign an admission was made on 5 October by the then federal minister for health, the member for Warringah. He fessed up about the former coalition government’s underfunding of health. He admitted in an interview that the share of federal government funding had gone down from 45 per cent to 41 per cent. It was like pulling teeth to get that admission, but the interviewer conducted a bit of oral surgery on that particular occasion and the member confessed that the then federal government had failed in its funding. In defence of the state Labor governments, that admission exposed the erroneous criticism that had been foisted upon them. There is no doubt that the state governments increased their spending on hospitals—and public hospitals at that—at a much faster rate than that of the Commonwealth government under the previous Howard administration.

The former minister for health was forced to make this frank admission following the release of a report prepared by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in Canberra. What that report revealed was stark. It said this: the previous coalition government’s public hospital funding had significantly declined proportionately over the life of the coalition government, and it was the state Labor governments that were in fact increasingly carrying the burden when it came to funding. That report was released on 5 October 2007 and it exposed that from 1995-96 to 2005-06 the former coalition government’s share of public hospital funding decreased from 45.2 per cent to 41.4 per cent. While the former coalition government criticised the states and shifted the blame, the truth was that the states were carrying the slack; they were taking responsibility. The report found that the state and territory government funding during that same period increased from 45.8 per cent to 50.6 per cent. It exposed the fallacious arguments made by the former coalition government that the states were not investing in health. The truth of the matter was that the former coalition government had acted in bad faith. The former coalition government had failed to make the critical investments necessary for the public health system in this country and to prepare for future growth.

The Australian public understood this on 24 November last year, and that is why they elected the Rudd Labor government. The difference between the Labor Party and the coalition at the last election in relation to health was simply this: Labor was prepared to take responsibility to fix the system; the coalition was not and had not in 11½ years. All it could offer was an admission of failure. I want to close by saying this: I commend this bill to the House because it is just the start. It is the start of a plan to reverse the damage to the health of the health system perpetrated and perpetuated by the previous coalition government over 11½ long years. The people of my electorate felt it, lived it and understood it, and that is why they voted in the Rudd Labor government and me particularly to carry that fight on their behalf.

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