Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister update the House on the government’s plans to improve maternity services?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hindmarsh for his question. He always takes a particular interest in health issues. We all know in this parliament that Australia is one of the safest places in the world to give birth and that is an enviable record that we must, of course, protect. In June I was pleased to introduce into the parliament landmark legislation to implement our $120 million maternity services package, which will boost the role of the nation’s nurses and midwives in providing high-quality health care and improving women’s access to high-quality safe maternity care. Our reforms, as many in the House would know, are facilitating access to the MBS and the PBS by patients of nurse practitioners and appropriately qualified and experienced midwives. This is going to help remove barriers to the provision of care and improve access to services for the community. By making better use of our maternity services workforce, new arrangements are also expected to ensure greater access to maternity care for women closer to their homes. These bills are before the House right now and Australia’s nurses and midwives know exactly where the Rudd government stands on this issue.

But as yet we do not know where the Liberal Party stand on this issue. How could we possibly know where the Liberal Party stand on this issue? The member for Dickson, true to form, has done nothing but grandstand and posture on this issue. We have seen no statement of support, no arguments against—no reason for any support to be denied or granted to nurses and midwives from the opposition. So what I want to make sure the parliament and the public are aware of today is just what it is that the Liberal Party seem unable to decide on when it comes to backing our nurses and midwives, who have waited decades for this change. Just so we are clear, do the Liberal Party truly want to prevent better access to breastfeeding support for many thousands of women across the country? Do they really want to prevent patients of nurse practitioners from accessing a rebate for medicines that they can legally prescribe today? Do they want to prevent innovative ways of ensuring that some of the most vulnerable in our community, like those in aged-care facilities, get better access to health care when and where they need it?

Any attempts by the Liberal Party to pretend that these bills take away rights are simply incorrect. The member for Dickson still seems to be very confused with the draft national registration and accreditation scheme legislation, which requires that all health professionals, including midwives, have professional indemnity insurance cover as a condition of their professional registration. This of course is an agreement which is being implemented by states and territories as well as by the Commonwealth but is not currently yet before any parliament in the country, a fact that I would have presumed the member for Dickson might have bothered to find out. The government, though, has always maintained a concern—and I have made it quite clear that I was concerned about this—about the potential impact of this draft legislation on a small number of midwives who provide homebirthing services and an independent private capacity outside state run services and without indemnity cover.

I am pleased to advise that on Friday last week, at a health ministers’ conference with state and territory colleagues, I was able to negotiate an agreement with the states and territories which will preserve the current rights of women who choose to have homebirth. Health ministers have agreed to a transitional clause in the national registration for a two-year exemption, which will last until July 2012, from the requirement to hold insurance as a condition of registration for privately practising midwives who are unable to obtain professional indemnity insurance for attending a homebirth. Importantly, state and territory health ministers agreed with our request that in order to access this exemption privately practising midwives will need to provide full disclosure, report each homebirth and participate in quality and safety frameworks. This is a sensible and practical arrangement which will allow for the status quo for women who choose homebirthing and continue to make that choice. Plus, for the first time, we will be able to collect national data on homebirthing and gather important information on quality and safety.

So now is the time that the member for Dickson and the Liberal Party need to tell the 285,000 nurses and midwives across the country whether or not they are going to support increasing recognition for nurses and midwives, providing greater access to quality health care for patients and providing more choice and access to maternity services. Nurses want to know the answer, midwives want to know the answer and women across the country want to know where the Liberal Party stands on this issue.