Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

The fact that the Midwife Professional Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 is being considered by the Senate is proof yet again that this government cannot get anything right. The Minister for Health and Ageing tried to blame the opposition for the troubles that she has had with the midwives and nurse practitioners bill and the midwife and professional indemnity bills through 2009 and 2010, but it was all her fault. She also tried to blame the Senate for delays in the legislation passing through the parliament, but it was the minister and the government that rushed legislation into parliament without taking the time to dot the i's and cross the t's. Through the process Minister Roxon had to admit that she had got it wrong and she had to backtrack. Perhaps she can use the lessons learnt to backtrack on asking tobacco companies for money—or will she blame someone else for that as well?

This week, of course, represented an all-time low for Ms Roxon. Her sanctimonious prosecution of the nanny state has highlighted her sheer hypocrisy over her solicitation of donations from big tobacco. Minister Roxon sought financial support even though her party had publicly declared it would not accept funds from big tobacco. It was interesting that in the other place the government refused to debate an opposition motion that the minister explain to parlia­ment why she publicly criticised tobacco company donations to political parties but privately sought their financial support. What does she have to hide? But I digress.

I go back to the legislation. Minister Roxon had to placate the concerned stakeholders. She had to clarify matters to a Senate committee, and then the minister had to make amendments. Then, after the legislation took effect from July last year, the minister was forced to make new rules to cover the problems that this bill now seeks to remedy. And what were those problems? The drafting of the original legislation excluded one group of midwives from accessing the indemnity contribution scheme. The legisla­tion treated those who operated their own companies and were self-employed the same as it treated those employed by large organisations such as hospitals or medical practices. The legislation had excluded employed midwives from the scheme. The government present this as an oversight. It was not the government's original intention, they say, and this bill to remedy the situation is presented as a technical fix for a minor element of the act. What it is, though, is another error on the part of the government and of this minister.

The second mistake is what the government has described as a 'typographical error'. What was the definition? What, effectively, the original legislation did was enshrine in law a formula to tax insurers of midwives at a rate far higher than the premium income those insurers received from the midwives for their insurance coverage. That is some typo. It is also typical of a government that continually talks about grandiose schemes and ambitions but then completely fails to do the hard yards to get the detail right.

Health is rich with failures. We have had the then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and Minister Roxon in scrubs, going to fix public hospitals by mid-2009. Minister Rudd—then Prime Minister Rudd—was going to take over the nation's public hospitals. By mid-2009, all we had was a series of reports from the multitude of committees, commissions, working groups and inquiries that the Rudd Labor government had commissioned. All we had by 2010 was a hastily thrown together plan branded the 'national health and hospitals reform' so that the Rudd-Gillard government could look like it was actually doing something to honour those commitments made to Australians in mid-2007. This reform consisted of media releases, conferences and communiques but no actual reform. Prime Minister Gillard's health reforms have excluded mental health and aged care. They are not reforms at all but are an agreement to have an agreement. How agreeable!

GP superclinics are supercopies of existing general practices except that they use taxpayers' money to set up a practice in opposition to a practice which has been established through private investment. It is completely offensive not just to the doctors and nurses who are involved but to patients as well. To make it worse, the government has decided that it will proffer preferential treatment in terms of the doctors—and, presumably, nurses in some cases as well—at these superclinics, which puts them at a competitive advantage over those practices which operate with the costs of capital being deployed into these centres. It is untenable that this situation continues. Minister Roxon promised more than 60 of these so-called superclinics. We know that just 10 of these clinics have opened across the country five years after they were promised and completely and utterly over budget. Nothing this government touches does anything but turn to dust. The health portfolio contains one classic example after another of why Labor just cannot be trusted with the sort of legislation that is before the Senate today or, indeed, the general health program.

Of course, the biggest failure of this government is in its mental health announcement: $2.2 billion over five years boils down to $583 million over the next four years with only $47 million spent in the first year. No wonder people are starting to realise that they have been duped by a big dose of spin. There will be money in the fifth year. Oh wait! That is the third year of the next term of government. Prime Minister Gillard's fantasy is that she will be around long enough to implement the fifth year of a mental health strategy. What nonsense.

This is a government that promises big but delivers nothing. Midwives do not have that luxury. They do one of the most important jobs in the human condition of guiding new life into the world, but this government has treated these hardworking women and men with utter contempt. The Australian taxpayers are also being treated with utter contempt. Lack of attention to detail is not justifiable. The sooner this government is put out of its misery the better off we will all be.

The coalition supported the original tranche of legislation in this area. We provided constructive input to the government. We warned them of some of the likely failings. Some of those failings have come to pass. They talk about typographical errors which, in effect, make the premium completely above and beyond what anybody could be expected to pay. Nobody in certain employment circumstances could practise reasonably as a result of this legislation. As I said, we flagged the fact that this government would get yet another bill wrong. They did not let us down. Certainly they have let the Australian people down.