Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this matter of public importance and to condemn Labor's waste and mismanagement and the chaos caused in the health sector, especially through retrospective funding cuts. Labor should be ashamed of its lack of care and lack of concern for the health and wellbeing of Australians using the public health system. Let us be clear, Labor is undermining our health system on a number of fronts. Let me name just three. Firstly, Labor is contravening the National Health Reform Agreement by rebasing funding under the agreement and then moving to fund hospitals directly instead of through the states. Secondly, Labor is increasing uncertainty about whether it plans to expand and improve health and hospital services and whether these plans can actually be funded—we know you cannot have a health plan without funding certainty. Finally, Labor is constantly undermining the 30 per cent private health insurance rebate, meaning increased costs for Australian families.

The federal Labor government's failure to honour the National Health Reform Agreement by reducing the funding and beginning direct funding of hospitals is bad policy. For Western Australia this is seriously bad policy, and I understand that the negative impact could be in the order of almost $100 million over the period to 2015-16—funding that is much needed to support a growing WA population with unique challenges of providing health services over a vast geographic area. The WA government has given effect to the National Health Reform Agreement, which Western Australia agreed to in August 2011 along with other states and territories and the Commonwealth.

Some background is necessary to understand the complexity of health funding in Australia. In the Western Australian context, for 2012-13 and 2013-14 this arrangement will not result in any different funding outcome for the state, other than under the current national healthcare agreement. However, from 2014-15 the Commonwealth's funding for public hospital services in Western Australia will vary on the quantum of activity delivered. From 2014-15 the Commonwealth will fund 45 per cent of the efficient cost of the growth in public hospital services over the preceding year. From 2017-18 this proportion will increase to 50 per cent. But this is the critical point: it is important to understand that this does not mean that the Commonwealth will become an equal partner with the state in the funding of public hospital services. This point has been made particularly clear by our state health minister. This is the case for two reasons. Firstly, the arrangement commencing in 2014-15 does nothing to address the current gross inequity in state and Commonwealth funding shares for public hospital services in Western Australia; it only applies to activity growth from that point forward. Secondly, the Commonwealth's funding of the growth in public hospital activity will be determined by the relevant proportion of a national efficient price to be determined by the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority. If the pricing authority's modelling fails to take into account the significant and legitimate cost of disabilities involved in the delivery of services in a state the size of Western Australia, the state will again be left to meet the shortfall in funding.

The improvements that we may have expected to see as a result of the introduction of activity based funding are now at risk of being lost. If you do not want to believe the coalition, that might be okay. If you do not want to believe the Greens and you do not want to believe Labor, that might be okay. But you might just want to read an editorial from the Financial Review earlier this week. It said:

However, these incremental improvements—

referring specifically to the benefits of activity based funding—

now look likely to fall victim to Labor's poor economic management. Desperate for budget savings in this year's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Gillard government used revised population estimates to cut $1.6 billion in hospital funding.

So the issue is serious and detrimental to our state.

There is much that I can say in regard to this, but let me just make one final comment. Less than two weeks ago, in Perth, the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Warringah, made an important statement. He said: 'The Barnett government has become a model for all the governments we run, or hope to run, right around the country.' Importantly, he said how much he would like to model himself on the WA Premier. 'In the area of delivering quality health services Labor has failed Australians. Only the coalition can deliver us a better health system. Only the coalition can properly meet the challenging needs of Australia, especially in health and ageing. There is much to learn from Colin Barnett and the WA Liberals.'