David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2014 is very much part of our efficiency agenda and measures. It overall reduces the number of additional government bodies in keeping with our red tape reduction program. There are also some housekeeping measures included in this bill. Essentially, it transfers the function of the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman into the Commonwealth Ombudsman's office. The Private Health Insurance Ombudsman assists health fund consumers. It also advises government. It also informs consumers through written, verbal or digital information. This function will continue.

Previous speakers have talked about the abolition of it. It is just rolling the responsibilities into an existing federal government department, and those functions will continue. As we have a very talented Australian Public Service, I am sure they will be able to cope with the responsibilities so given, but it will reduce costs significantly—at minimum at least $600,000 a year and perhaps a whole lot more. Think about a separate body requiring separate premises, a separate secretariat support, all these dollars and cents multiplied across the whole public service. If we can make it more efficient, well and good.

Not only do we have the Intergenerational report on one hand outlining the increasing responsibilities in a fiscal sense that the Commonwealth will have as a result of the ageing demographic; in the electorate of Lyne we have been coping with that demographic for 15 or more years. Not only is all of Australia looking at increased costs because of the ageing phenomenon; we are hoping that lots of people like I have in my electorate will maintain their activity and engagement through voluntary or part-time work But, unfortunately, it is a fact of human nature that there are increasing health costs in the ageing population. So we have had to cope with twice the number of 65-year-olds, which has placed a very large burden on the public hospital system and the private hospital system, as well as on medical practitioners in their private rooms. Somewhere along the line, the Commonwealth has to pay. That is why we need to reduce red tape; because red tape induces cost.

In the electorate of Lyne, we have two major private health institutions that rely on a robust private health insurance industry to deliver their services to the electorate of Lyne. In the town of Taree we have the Mayo Private Hospital, which has been successfully operating since 1922, serving the people of the Manning, from a cottage hospital through to its now state-of-the-art facilities. It is an 81-bed hospital with three theatres and multiple imaging labs—including a cardiac intervention imaging lab. It has new pathology services. It has new radiology services associated with it, including an MRI.

In the first year since the Healthe Care group took over the Mayo Private Hospital in the Manning, over $10 million of capital upgrades have been committed and spent. So there are general medical and surgical services there. There is a large mental health capability and service that the Mayo delivers well outside the Manning, north into the Hastings and south and east into the Forster catchment area. They run a five-chair dialysis unit, which delivers state-of-the-art care for those with renal failure. There are rehabilitation services and a full allied health service. Over 230 staff are employed, with 100 or so credentialed doctors. This is a major asset to the people of the Manning and the surrounding areas.

In Port Macquarie we have a longstanding private hospital, now run by Ramsay Health Care, called Port Macquarie Private Hospital. In the suite of private hospital facilities, they also have the Coolenberg Day Surgery and the Hastings Day Surgery. Within the private hospital, they have 80-plus beds, depending on how many are in the day unit. They have invested heavily in the rehabilitation area, which is very critical in our area because we have larger than average numbers of elderly people, who take a while to rehabilitate after hip surgery or knee surgery or after a cerebrovascular event or a stroke.

We have a state-of-the-art facilities now being provided for people in Port Macquarie. This takes enormous pressure off the public hospital system, where I worked for many years. There is the full range of medical and surgical facilities, short of neurosurgery and cardiothoracic surgery. Services like orthopaedics have been there since inception, and the services for respiratory, cardiology, gastroenterology, oncology, palliative care, urology and vascular are all second to none.

The people in the Lyne electorate are very well served by health facilities now. The Manning Base Hospital has just had a $20 million upgrade announced by my state colleague the member for Myall Lakes, Steve Bromhead. What a fantastic job he has been doing for people in the Manning. I am sure that in this weekend's state election he will be rewarded for the tireless efforts he has undertaken for the people in Taree, Forster and the area of Myall Lakes. It is hard to get care if you do not have hospital facilities—compared to some of the electorates in the rest of the country, we are very blessed—but as I have mentioned, both Manning Base Hospital and Port Macquarie Base Hospital would be overflowing if we did not have these two private hospital institutions in both the major towns of the electorate.

So, getting back to this legislation, the Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2014 tidies up, as I mentioned, some housekeeping matters. It removes references to the base premium measures—without any financial impact, it makes it workable. There was a lot of toing and froing about this when it was first mooted and then there was delay in royal assent, so a lot of these measures have been implemented but this is legislatively tidying it all up.

So I commend the red tape reduction program that this government has undertaken. We have reduced red tape that people like the private health industry have to put with, and many other industries. Government regulation and red tape does lead to a dollar cost for many industries. The private health industry was paying for the ombudsman on a cost-recovery basis. If we can reduce the costs, it means lower premiums. We all depend on the private health insurance system in one way or another—whether you are premium payer and a self-insurer or not, everyone relies on the health system sometime or other. If we do not have a viable private health industry, the public health system will fall over.

So I commend this bill to the House and I recommend all its features.

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