Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Tyrrell for the question and for her ongoing advocacy and interest on health care in Tasmania. The question Senator Tyrrell asks really goes to a state government responsibility here, because, whilst the Commonwealth funds and makes a contribution to hospitals, they are owned and operated by state governments and state health services. Whilst there have in the past been public-private partnerships with private hospitals to ensure that, if there is excess capacity in those hospitals, public lists can be delivered through private arrangements, they have been—

Sorry, Senator Ruston keeps interjecting. I can't hear her. I can't hear what you're saying, Senator Ruston, but you are interrupting.

Opposition senators interjecting—

Well, it's not so much if it's a one off. It's just that when it's persistent it does distract you from your answer.

But the point you raise is one where I think most state governments that I know have entered into arrangements with private hospitals for exactly those sorts of things, including in mental health services and definitely elective surgery. So there is nothing stopping that. I know the Department of Health and Aged Care, under Minister Butler's leadership, is looking at the issues that private hospital providers, particularly those not-for-profit providers, have raised about viability and pressures in the system, and I think it's in everyone's interests to make sure that the private and public hospital systems continue to operate. Obviously, they do rely on each other. The private system often does the high-volume, low-acuity work, and then the public sector does all the other areas. But it's absolutely important that they work together, and I know the Department of Health and Aged Care is looking into some of those viability issues. (Time expired)