Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

May I say from the outset that I am quite astonished that for the first time in my history as a parliamentarian—and it would be interesting to look at the history of parliament since Federation—I see the opposition with far more contributions on an appropriations bill than the government has. The government members usually get up and extol all the virtues of what the appropriations bills are going to do for their electorates and what a great job the government is doing, but where are they? We outnumber them by a dozen. Where are they? It is quite astonishing. It would be really interesting to look at the history of the appropriation bills to see if this is indeed a first since Federation.

The bills before us today, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2010-2011, relate to government funding decisions. I have some real concerns about some of those decisions. I have just come from a hearing of the Standing Committee on Regional Australia. The National Water Commission—the chair of which, Ken Matthews, recently retired or resigned, whichever way you want to look at it—employs about 58 people at a cost of about $12 million per year. All this money being spent is basically duplicating the work of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. So there is some money that the government could save straightaway—by looking at duplication in areas such as water management in Australia. The committee found it very frustrating trying to get answers out of the National Water Commission. They are supposed to have a blueprint to deal with overallocation and other issues, but they did not have a figure for it and they could not give us an answer—it was quite astonishing.

I have other real concerns about this government’s funding policies. I raise the issue of the Keith hospital again. I know that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, made a brave attempt to support both your federal and state governments on that issue. In its budget last year, the South Australian Labor government announced that it would cut funding to regional hospitals, including Keith, Ardrossan and Moonta. In Keith, in my electorate, the funding cut is about 60 per cent, or nearly $400,000. The Keith hospital will close its doors in April this year without this funding, despite the state Labor minister, John Hill, saying yesterday that it is all a bluff and that the hospital will not close. The state government claims to have found some savings the hospital can make to enable it to keep running. I will come back to those recommendations because they are very questionable—bordering on illegal, I believe.

When the Keith hospital closes in April—and the clock is ticking very loudly—the next closest hospitals will be Bordertown, Naracoorte and Murray Bridge. On top of forcing residents to attend already overbooked hospitals such as those, this will leave large stretches of a notoriously dangerous highway without a hospital—nearly 200 kilometres of the Dukes Highway from Bordertown to Murray Bridge and 240 kilometres from Naracoorte to Murray Bridge. These are two of the busiest stretches of road in Australia and they have some of the highest fatality rates and accident levels in South Australia, and the hospital in the middle of that region will disappear.

Surely the state and federal governments must realise how important the Keith hospital is. My motion in parliament on Monday—which we will probably not get to vote on until 24 March—said that the Keith hospital should be funded for $600,000 and that the federal government should reduce the South Australian government’s national health care specific purpose payment by the same amount. By doing that we would actually save both the federal government and the state government money. It would not cost the Australian taxpayer one cent but would save money for both the federal and state governments. The state government has applied a completely stupid economic silo rationale to come up with what it thinks are savings without realising that those savings will probably end up creating extra costs of five times that amount. The state government’s policy is really quite ridiculous, but apparently—as shown by the speeches on Monday night—the federal government is going to let it happen.

There is some history on this. Ten years ago the state government was funding Keith and District Hospital to the amount of 35 per cent of its total costs. The other 65 per cent, of course, was from the local community. This was a very significant saving to both the federal and state taxpayers. But since that 10-year figure of 35 per cent it has been whittled down gradually to about 25 per cent of the total costs now. Seventy-five per cent is paid by the community. This is already unsustainable, and these further cuts will bring it down to not much more than 10 per cent of the funding for a community hospital with 90 per cent paid by the community. That is unsustainable when you compare that to other regional hospitals that get virtually 100 per cent of their funding via the state and federal taxpayers.

So you are cutting your nose off to spite your face. It is really the most ridiculous governance that I have ever seen or heard put forward by any government in Australia. This is a hospital, I might add, that has received over $1 million in capital infrastructure funding from both the Howard government and the Rudd government. So they thought it was pretty important to relocate the doctors’ surgery out of the hospital and convert part of it into an aged-care setup. That is how a lot of country hospitals work these days. The federal government approved of the 10-year plan of the Keith and District Hospital with funding from both sides of parliament. When this closes you will lose 18 aged-care beds. Where are they going to go? We already have shortages in rural area, so you are basically going to put them out on the street. Try to find a place for them. How are you going to do that overnight? It just will not happen.

For example, the St John Ambulance service will close as a volunteer group. The local community will not support taking patients to hospitals 180 kilometres away or 100 kilometres away. They will have to put in a paid St John Ambulance—again an extra cost to the Australian taxpayers. I think it is very interesting—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Before the suspension, I was about to raise an issue concerning the questionable methods recommended by the state government for the Keith hospital. In a public meeting at Keith last night, hospital chairman, James De Barro, said that Country Health SA had advised the hospital to use aged-care bonds and staff entitlements as cash flows during a business restructure. This is dodgy, to say the least. Mr De Barro said that the advice would expose the hospital to legal penalties and was potentially in breach of federal and state laws, particularly given it was on the brink of insolvency. He said:

At the end of the day, the (staff) provisions are the staff’s hard-earned capital and the board cannot and will not knowingly break any law, social or moral, with respect to other people’s money.

The board finds it difficult to understand—

And I find it extraordinarily difficult to understand—

that the State Government would suggest breaching a federal or state Act or dismissing basic moral standards was a satisfactory means of dealing with a reduction in State Government funding support.

He said that the state government had advocated using accommodation bonds and retention amounts—which are required by law to be refunded, as we all know, if needed—as operating capital. He said that the move would have provided the hospital with about $470,000 in operating capital to assist in trading out of the current problems, but it would have exposed it to legal ramifications. He said:

If, in the event the hospital were to become insolvent and the accommodation bonds had been expended, it would create significant problems to the families … as well as significant penalties, with possible legal implications to the board.

I have to say that this is the most questionable advice I have ever heard from any government anywhere in Australia. This is banana republic stuff. This is what a tyrant would do—suggest breaking its own laws. The Labor state health minister should look at this very seriously. In fact, I believe there should be an inquiry at least at state government level, if not at federal government level, on the suggestion. This is an absolute disgrace.

On another matter, I received a response from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, to an inquiry from some of my constituents in the south-east of my electorate regarding digital TV. Residents in Mount Gambier and Kingston and other areas in the south-east have felt ripped off since the digital switch-over due to ongoing problems with reception or channel availability. I took the liberty to write to the minister to seek some answers, and I have to say I was extremely disappointed to receive a letter back that insulted the intelligence of those residents. The correspondence from the minister suggested these residents have not installed their equipment properly, or basically blamed it on everything other than Labor themselves. This is a lovely bit of blame game!

These residents do not need a blame game; they need the transmitters upgraded like the government promised. Why did Labor make this region switch to digital TV if the infrastructure was not sufficiently upgraded in time? It is not good enough to say, ‘It will be upgraded, we think maybe some time in 2011, maybe next year.’ These residents were switched over in 2010. Now they have to wait a full year or more before they can even get decent reception and have access to the full suite of channels.

Of course, on the subject of youth allowance I support the amendment that has been moved by the member for Sturt. Regional students will be disappointed to learn that the government’s proposed changes to independent youth allowance next year may not mean students in the inner regional zones will be subject to the same criteria as other regional areas. Certainly, the coalition has been pushing for the government to make the criteria fairer and more equal.

The current maps used are ridiculous and do not reflect the difficulties students from many areas have in getting to university. For example, in Mount Gambier if you live inside the city boundary, you are treated differently than if you live across the road outside the boundary. We have this really ridiculous set-up where you have two classes of students depending on where you live in the country. It is crazy; it is based on the wrong criteria and it should be changed. Certainly, Minister Evans admitted that changing the criteria for the inner regional zones was not necessarily going to happen. The current legislation is unfair and needs to be fixed. (Time expired)

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