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

I speak in support of the Health Practitioner Regulation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010. The member for Dickson mentioned GP superclinics. There is one in his electorate and he should care to have a look at it from time to time. He did not even turn up on the day when it was opened. There is one for my electorate too. It is about to be opened in August this year.

Unlike the previous government, we have not procrastinated on this issue of national registration as they did year after year—1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Eventually in 2005 a Productivity Commission report came down. They were in power all through that time and they should have known for a start that national registration and accreditation is an important factor in any profession, be it law, engineering, medicine or nursing, so any registration and accreditation should be recognised. If, for example, you live in Coolangatta or Tweed Heads it is simply a nonsense that there is not the same uniform national registration and recognition of professional qualifications. It is simply ridiculous to think that there is a notional dingo fence there. For a long time the coalition government did little. I admit that from 2007 onwards they took steps, as the Productivity Commission report came down, through the COAG process but it took them year after year to get there. If you had listened to the member for Dickson, you would think that they responded in March 1996 over this concern. They did not; they sat there and did nothing. This has been a long time coming. This is a landmark reform. This is very important. For years they blamed the states and territories. For years the current Leader of the Opposition constantly complained when he was the health minister about the states and territories. He would not meet them from time to time and in the end, before the last election, he had to simply admit that that was the case.

This legislation is important. The member for Dickson was a little disingenuous about that. He failed to recognise that we have taken up the mantle of national reform in this regard after years of failure by the coalition government. We recognise that this is important and that it was stalled but needed to be pursued. We immediately got down to discussing the issue with the states and territories and in March 2008 signed an intergovernmental agreement to progress the national scheme. As for what we are doing here today, 10 health professions are going to have national, consistent uniform standards for their workforces. This is really important stuff. I am sure that our founding fathers, when they created Australia as a federation many years ago, would not have thought about these issues but we know how important they are. All people, whether they live in Australia in Tweed Heads or in the Torres Strait, should get the same access to good and decent health care. We are going to make sure that there are health professionals in every part of this country. Whether you live in Perth, on the west coast, or in Palm Beach, on the east coast, you should have access to decent health care, high-quality and accessible health care, provided by doctors, nurses and other health professionals, such as physiotherapists and the like, who have uniform national standards of accreditation and registration. So this is an important national reform. Under the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the Health Professions, the national arrangements for registration and accreditation will be implemented by the states and territories as part of their jurisdiction. We know that we had to get the cooperation of the states and territories because constitutionally that was required. The societies, associations and professional bodies that govern these professions are state based and so we have had to make arrangements with them.

The member for Dickson was very critical of the Rudd government and used his speech as an opportunity to attack the government for what they have done. I can tell him that in my electorate alone we have seen major changes and reforms in health and hospital funding due to assistance by the Rudd government since we got into power in 2007. For years, the Ipswich-West Moreton area was neglected by the Howard government, whether it was infrastructure funding, school funding or health and hospital funding. With the election of the Rudd Labor government, there were immediate improvements in the area of health funding, including after-hours clinics, surgery waiting lists and operating theatres in the Ipswich General Hospital. These are important changes, and they have been made by the Rudd Labor government. We have poured money into the Ipswich and West Moreton area in my electorate of Blair. For the member for Dickson to simply cast aspersions on the government’s credibility, authority and authenticity in health reform is, I think, a nonsense when I look at the record of the previous government. They failed miserably in this regard.

We are going to train 6,000 more doctors. The member for Dickson failed to note in his dissertation on health and hospital reform that the previous government ripped $1 billion out of the health system and capped GP training places. If he had been more active in relation to health and hospital reform when he was on ministerial leather, we would have seen more changes and better reforms in this area. Certainly in areas such as the Brisbane Valley, which I inherited from him following an electoral redistribution in Queensland, there is major need for further reforms and a better health system as well as further and better health funding for the Esk Hospital. The area of the Brisbane Valley was neglected under the tenure of the federal member for Dickson. We are working hard to improve health and hospital services in the Brisbane Valley, Somerset and Ipswich, after years of neglect by the coalition government.

This bill contains important changes and reforms. It is an amendment bill. Stakeholders have been listened to and amendments have been made to the bill by reason of this listening aspect of the Rudd Labor government. The member for Dickson said that we were not taking notice of stakeholders. We did take notice of the AMA and the nursing associations and nursing professions. Amendments have been made to the legislation before us. This bill is an amendment to the original bill in relation to national registration.

We took into consideration submissions made by the Australian Medical Association concerning issues of specialist and consultant physicians. Under the proposed legislation subsection (c) required that ‘he or she had to satisfy any other requirements prescribed by regulations in relation to the specialty’. The AMA did not have any problems with being registered in a specialty under state law. They did not have any problems about the specialty being prescribed in regulations made under the Health Insurance Act, but they did have problems with other requirements. The amendments in this bill clarify the purpose of the regulation making power in paragraph (c). The AMA also sought amendments, as the member for Dickson mentioned, to sections of the legislation governing the ability to render Medicare rebatable services. Again, we have listened to the concerns of the AMA and made amendments that address stakeholder concerns. We have widened the scope of sections 19C, 19CB and 19DA of the HIA, which apply to all health professionals that render Medicare rebatable services.

The member for Dickson talked about concerns raised by the nursing profession. Again, we have listened to what they have had to say about the definitions of ‘nurse’ and ‘nursing care’ and made amendments accordingly. This legislation is about making sure our system is nationally consistent. It is about making sure that where workforce shortages exist they are addressed. Where there is a need for social mobility of employment or there is a shortage of health professionals, these issues will be addressed. This legislation is about removing barriers or obstacles of a legal, constitutional and regulatory nature to people living in regional and rural communities—the kinds of communities that I represent in the federal electorate of Blair—having the health services that they need. Let us take locum health services as an example. In many small country towns there might be a hospital or one or two GPs, and it can be a challenge to get a locum in when a GP wants to go on holidays. National registration and accreditation improves the capacity and boosts the opportunity for these communities to get a locum in from interstate. It is very important that we make sure that doctors and health professionals can move across state borders.

This legislation is a very important reform. Streamlining specialist registration and recognition will improve the health system in this country. It will also improve it in regional and rural communities. It will make sure that we have a national approach to a national issue. It will also make sure that we end the duplication and the silly eccentricities of federalism that prevent a uniform system across the country. It will obliterate red tape. It will make sure that we have the same system across every state and territory in this country with respect to national registration and accreditation. There is more work to be done, but the government is getting on with the job of listening to stakeholders, making national reform, putting in money where there was no money, making sure that nurses and health professionals get trained properly and rolling out GP superclinics, even in the electorate of Dickson.

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