Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House notes that:

(1) Australian Hearing Awareness Week runs from 23 to 29 August 2015;

(2) Australia has world class hearing services including those which have been delivered through Australian Hearing since it was established to assist returning Diggers in 1947;

(3) hearing loss currently affects one in six Australians and is predicted to affect one in four Australians by 2050; and

(4) events will be held all around the country to raise awareness of hearing issues including the Australian Hearing Hub Open House which will be held at Macquarie University on 22 August 2015 in the lead up to the Australian Hearing Awareness Week.

Australian Hearing Awareness Week is a very important week that runs from 23 August to 29 August 2015—next week. It is very important for people to focus on their hearing and, in particular, on testing it. We have to thank the organisers, the Office of Hearing Services and the Deafness Forum of Australia. There are events running around Australia. In my own electorate, Australian Hearing have a bus which I have seen around in the electorate from time to time. The last time I saw it will was at the Jack Young Centre for Seniors at Salisbury. It will be stopping by various locations throughout Adelaide. On 27 August, between 9 am and 4 pm, it will be at Bunnings Munno Para, so it will be busy—a lot of people do their shopping there. It will be providing the same service that Australian Hearing has been providing for so many years. In fact, since 1947, this important Australian institution has been serving the public under governments of both persuasions. It even had significant expansions during the Holt and the Howard governments. Australian Hearing is an institution that we should be proud of. We should also be proud of Australia's record on hearing. I am sure that members following from the opposite side will give us an indication of that.

Unfortunately Australia's success in this area is under threat because the government's audit commission recommended the privatisation of Australian Hearing. Australian Hearing is a very important anchor for all of the private services, all of the charity services, all of the research that is done and all of the medical exports. Australian Hearing is the foundation stone of all of that. It is a great pity that the government has left a cloud over this institution—the cloud of privatisation.

Recently there were Senate hearings into this privatisation, and what did we find? We found that the government has not consulted enough. Mrs Porter, who came to give some information to the Senate committee, said:

… we had compiled a really long list of questions that we have constantly sent to the Office of Hearing Services, the Department of Health and the Minister for Finance about all the issues that we are concerned about. From my understanding, those were really not addressed at that consultation.

She also said:

We did a submission when we heard about the scoping study. We decided to do a submission which we sent to the Department of Finance. After we sent that, we did get asked to go to PwC, who gave us a fair bit of their time. We have not seen a scoping study.

What we have seen here is a government that launched a scoping study but did not consult anybody about it—not any of the service providers or anyone in the industry. It basically had a consultation that nobody went to.

We know that consultation is so important because one of the other issues that was brought up at the Senate select committee was the interaction between Australian Hearing, the Office of Hearing Services and the NDIS. Some of the evidence at that Senate committee was that that question has not been resolved and is entirely up in the air.

We have a government that has not consulted and a government that has not thought through the interactions of hearing services. Services are provided by Australian Hearing to a person from birth until the age of 26 and post 65 years. But the government has not thought about the interaction with hearing services that goes on in an individual's life between the ages of age 26 and 65. We know it has not thought that through, because the Senate heard evidence to that effect. We know it has not thought through the privatisation, because in the budget it has kicked the can down the road another few months while it arbitrates within the government about whether to privatise an institution that has been around since 1947 under governments of both persuasions—an institution which does not need to be privatised.

There is no money in it. All that will happen is that services will become contestable. Australian Hearing services 468 locations, including 212 remote locations. In a country this large no collection of providers will be able to provide the service that Australian Hearing, a government backed and government owned institution, does. The government should think about what it is doing and reject privatisation.

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