Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I will speak briefly on some of the additional matters that the shadow minister has raised, because I know that it is to the House’s convenience for us not to debate these at length, given that I think we are all aware that there will be another opportunity in another place and again in the House to do that in the future.

Obviously both the member for Dickson and I have been in this House long enough to know that there are on occasions differences of view between the House and the Senate. Thinking that the will of the Senate, therefore, must be agreed to within the House seems to be turning the idea of democracy on its head somewhat. Similarly, we cannot require that the Senate always share the view of the will of the House. It is a matter that the government will not support. We do disagree to these amendments. We do not believe that they are constitutional. We do not believe, in any case, that they are the mechanism that should be used to deal with a disallowance, which will no doubt be before the Senate again tomorrow.

It will not be a surprise to anyone, either, that on occasions not only are the will of the Senate and the will of the House different but the legal advice from the clerks and provided to the clerks might on occasion be different too. We have, as we have advised the Senate, advice from the Government Solicitor. The Deputy Speaker read advice that had been provided—or obtained; I am not privy to that—by the Speaker. We can argue back and forth about the constitutionality for as long as we like, but the substance of this measure is not agreed to by the government because (1) we do not believe that it is appropriate to delay the introduction of a compliance bill which is in no way related to the level of rebate paid for cataract treatment and (2) we do not believe that taxpayers should be unable to reap the benefit of technological advances when they become available. We can look at international comparisons—I can speak for another half an hour on these—but those issues are all already on the record and I do not think it will further debate today. But it is very important for that to be acknowledged.

I did meet last week with the ophthalmologists—both the college and the association. We are continuing to have discussions with them. Of course, fairly strong disagreements have been registered, but that does not mean that people do not think they can be mature enough to work through to see if there is another way to resolve this matter. It is not going to be resolved by an amendment which means that forever and a day a government is unable to change a rebate for a Medicare item when it has spent $14 billion just in the last financial year. Taxpayers expect us to have good scrutiny to make sure every one of those dollars is spent well and to the best advantage. For those reasons, the government opposes amendments (1) and (10).

Question agreed to.

I present the reasons for the House disagreeing to the Senate amendments (1) and (10), and I move:

That the reasons be adopted.

Question agreed to.

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