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

Minister Plibersek has sought to indicate that the findings in a report released by the National Health Performance Authority, Australians' experiences with primary health care in 2010-11, are not what they seem. In her press release, 'Report highlights the importance of Medicare Locals', she makes the following two inconsistent statements: 'The National Health Performance Authority report reinforced the importance of Medicare Locals.' She also states: 'while the data in this report predates the establishment of Medicare Locals'. So, in one quote the minister pretends that a report justifies 3,000 staff that have grown from a couple of hundred in 12 months when the report, by her own admission, was compiled under data predating the establishment of Medicare Locals. This is the first time that we have seen Minister Plibersek confirming that there are over 3,000 people, mostly staff, who do not see any patients and are employed across the Medicare Local network. Now this government is spending over a billion dollars on its dozens of new bureaucracies, new structures, and it wonders why it has no money left for patients.

From a coalition perspective, we have consistently said that we support a role for the coordination of primary care, but we do not support money being prioritised away from patients into vast bureaucratic structures. It is also worth noting that the Department of Health and Ageing and its existing agencies already employ over 6,000 people. According to the minister, this number has effectively increased by 50 per cent. When the sad and sorry saga of the Rudd-Gillard government comes to an end, Minister Plibersek will be remembered for pouring taxpayers' money into bureaucratic positions and not pouring money into more doctors, nurses or beds. For this reason the coalition has indicated that we will be formally reviewing the structure of Medicare Locals if we are elected in September.

In this debate it is worth pondering on some of Labor's health record during its time over both the Rudd and the Gillard governments: $1.6 billion ripped out of public hospitals; $4 billion ripped out of private health insurance; and $1 billion ripped out of dental health through the closure of the Medicare Chronic Disease Dental Scheme. There was the promise of 16 early psychosis prevention and intervention centres, EPPICs, which were supposedly to be in partnership with the state governments. Whilst the agreements were about to be signed with some of those governments, all of a sudden Minister Butler changed his mind, ripped all that up, and decided to change his tack on the centres, and all we have is a one-page press release with very, very little detail as to how all of this is actually going to occur.

I am conscious of the time, so I will make some general closing comments, because I do know that Senator Back wants to make a contribution in this space as well. The coalition, as I said, continues to support a role for coordination of primary health services. However, it is very, very clear that there remains a considerable lack of detail and conflicting information regarding the objectives of Medicare Locals. In relation to the current level of practical assistance provided to general practice there is a lack of detail about allied health professionals and patients and about how funding is being administered. We know that there is a lot of money being channelled through Medicare Locals, but we do not know how that money is being administered. More importantly, is it being administered effectively and is the Commonwealth getting value for money for these so-called 'services'? Are they effective in regard to their cooperation with the local hospital networks to keep people out of hospitals? We keep hearing that the lists in our hospitals are growing, and supposedly Medicare Locals are assisting with those lists, but the lists are increasing. We know that there is a duplication of function with existing state health programs, but we do not know how Medicare Locals determine market failure in their area and intervene without disrupting existing services. It is very important that, given the significant investment the Commonwealth is making, the coalition ensures that that funding is being spent as effectively as possible.

I conclude by saying that this bill is mostly uncontentious, barring the issue surrounding Medicare Locals. It is nothing more than a blatant attempt to fix up what has been a massive stuff-up by the government by trying to pass off a name, which is well known to the Australian people as an office that delivers a particular service, to somehow buy themselves goodwill with yet another bureaucracy that we now know employs 3,000 people. We do not really know what they do and they certainly do not provide any services to Australians. It is an absolute disgrace. It is so typical of not only the dysfunction but the waste of these governments under Mr Rudd then Ms Gillard and now under Mr Rudd again. Of course, it will not be finishing there because, now that the ego has landed, I am sure we are going to see so much more spin and many more photo shoots that were so characteristic of his previous time as Prime Minister. As I said, the coalition will be moving an amendment to this bill.