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

Certainly, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I felt that it was very important that I take the member for Dickson to task for the statement he made about Barry Jones and this being a joint money-laundering exercise. I am really responding to issues that were raised by the previous speaker in this debate. I feel that it is in the interest of good sound debate and of ensuring that the Australian people have the correct information that I respond.

As the member for Mackellar rightly points out, this legislation is about amendments to the national health reform agenda. It makes amendments relating to the administrator's functions and the Hughes provisions and to allow the funding body to assist the administrator in acting in his or her state capacity. The purpose of these amendments is to amend the bill to address concerns from the Victorian and Western Australian governments that the Commonwealth legislation should not confer on the Commonwealth appointed administrator powers to exercise functions that should be exercised only by state appointed administrators, such as making payments from state pool accounts within the National Health Funding Pool. There are four aspects to the amendments. In talking to those amendments, I need to say that these are essentially technical amendments, in that they do not change the operation of the administrator of the National Health Funding Pool; they just allow the function to be conferred on the office. They do not change the role; they allow it to be conferred on the office.

The bill as introduced reflects an agreement by Commonwealth and state officials on how these functions should be conferred in Commonwealth legislation and be mirrored in state legislation. After the bill was finalised the two jurisdictions I have mentioned changed their mind. Rather than having all functions conferred under both Commonwealth and state law, the states asked that state functions be conferred only under state law. So this was a request of the states.

These amendments remove from Commonwealth law the functions of monitoring state payments into the National Health Funding Pool and making payments from that pool. These functions will now be conferred on the administrator under state law. However, the Commonwealth law will still require the administrator to report monthly on payments of Commonwealth and state funding to local health networks, resulting in unparalleled public access to information about how money flows through the public hospital system. I believe that is a very important component of this legislation. It is imperative that those monthly reports be made. It is imperative that this amendment goes through the House, so as to ensure the functioning of the body. I am very pleased that the opposition is supporting it.

The other amendment that is being made to the national reform bill will enable the Commonwealth to make national health reform payments to the states and territories. This will require key changes, including replacing the national healthcare specific purpose payments with payments to public hospital and health services and ensuring that national health reform payments are made in accordance with the National Health Reform Agreement. The bill is being amended to change the date of effect from 1 July 2012 to the date that the act receives royal assent. This amendment is being made to ensure there is greater flexibility to make payments to some or all of the parties ahead of 1 July 2012.

This is fairly technical, but important, legislation. It will ensure that reform of the health system flows in the way the government intends. It puts in place proper accountability measures. I strongly support this legislation and am pleased that the opposition, for once, is not opposing legislation before the parliament and will be supporting the government on this legislation.

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