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

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

These amendments have gone through a detailed process of discussion and negotiation in the Senate. We support all of these amendments, which addressed the issues raised by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee and which were introduced by the Greens in the Senate.

The establishment of the commission as a permanent independent body from 1 July 2011 dedicated to monitoring safety and quality in health care is critical to the government’s health reforms, which are driving greater transparency and accountability of health services to the Australian public.

I am disappointed that the opposition continues to fail to support this bill when the Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Health Care was established as a temporary body under Mr Abbott’s tenure as the health minister. Not supporting the commission on quality and safety showed, I think, that their strategy in health is just to block everything. There is the opportunity now here in the House, with the Senate having agreed to these amendments and the government being prepared to accede to those amendments, for the opposition to show their support for such an important change. The commission, of course, will take a leading role in ensuring that all Australians have a healthcare system that provides safe, high-quality healthcare services. I hope that the opposition will now support this bill.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a government that put forward on the one hand so-called health reform at the same time as they are pulling money out of important areas like mental health on the other. This is a government which has a minister for health who does not know anything about these reforms because most of them have been drafted out of the Prime Minister’s office—either the current holder of that office or the previous Prime Minister. It is a complete and utter embarrassment for this minister to stand in this place and suggest something that she has had no hand in whatsoever.

This is a government that wants people to believe that reform is taking place in health when really all that they are doing is creating yet another great big new bureaucracy. If it were one new bureaucracy then perhaps you could understand that the government wants to head in a different direction. If it were two new bureaucracies then perhaps you could be generous and arrive at the same outcome. But this government proposes three great big new bureaucracies as what they are putting forward by way of reform. It has to be said that this is nothing more and nothing less than the failed path that state Labor has taken us on in the area of health.

The Labor Party at a state level has completely and utterly trashed a system which is full of good doctors, nurses and allied health professionals because they have completely and utterly overburdened that system with extra health bureaucrats. Just by way of example people ask about a state like Queensland or New South Wales, where there have been record revenues either in stamp duty or in relation to mining revenues and yet none of that money has made a difference in the way in which hospital services or public health systems have delivered those services. At the same time as these governments have gone into massive debt, the health systems have got worse. That is exactly the same path that this failed government is taking us down as well.

The amendments passed by the Senate that are the subject of this debate do not substantively change the nature of the bill. The coalition have made it clear that we support the work of the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care as it currently operates within the department. We do not believe that the creation of a great big new bureaucracy is warranted. The function is currently performed within the department, but this government says that it needs to create another new bureaucracy. It does not take any resources away or reduce the numbers of people within the department to do that function; this is in addition to that.

That is why we believe that this minister is embarrassed from one end of the country to the other, because initially the reforms were driven out of the Prime Minister’s office, probably in ignorance of the fact that this function was already performed by the Department of Health and Ageing and, I suspect, out of callousness by the current Prime Minister, because she does not have an easy relationship with this minister. We know that this is a minister who does not want to be in the health portfolio. Talk to stakeholders around the country: this is a minister who wants to be the Attorney-General, not the health minister. That is why I think the wheels are falling off this reform very quickly. It is exactly the reason that the Australian Medical Association at the weekend distanced themselves from yet another tranche of this reform—so-called. As you talk to doctors and nurses around the country, they are opposed to this reform, which is not adding up to any change or any betterment in our hospitals or in clinics around the country.

That is why we are taking the opportunity again to say that this is bad policy. Sure, these amendments are benign as proposed by the Senate, but we call again on the Independents to support the coalition, because we believe very strongly that if this amendment goes down then this will be a difficult situation for the government to recover from. If they cannot get agreement in the other place and if we can scuttle these amendments in this place then we will be doing a great service for anybody who wants to see the health system in this country improve.

This is a government that is built on a lie. This is a government that is built on spin, and there is no area where that is more evident at the moment than in the area of health. This is a government that wants to have a situation just like that in New South Wales, where the Labor Party presides over this huge spin machine. It wants the Australian public, now at a federal level, to believe that it is doing something about health when really it is starving clinicians of dollars and putting those dollars into these new bureaucracies.

We certainly stand for significant reform, but this is not significant reform. We oppose these amendments because we want to defeat this bill. We oppose these amendments because we want a better healthcare system in this country. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the amendments be agreed to.