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

I seek leave to amend Senate business notice of motion No. 1 standing in my name by omitting ‘25 June 2010’ and substituting ‘18 June 2010’.

Leave granted.

I move the motion as amended:

That the following matter be referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry and report by 18 June 2010:

The key outcomes agreed by the Commonwealth Government and five states and two territories at the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on 19 April and 20 April 2010 and the process of consultation between the states and Commonwealth prior to these agreements and related matters, including but not limited to:

(a)

the new financial arrangements between the Commonwealth and states and territories over the forward estimates and the conditional requirements upon the states for receipt of additional Commonwealth funding;

(b)

what amounts of the $5.4 billion Commonwealth funding is new spending, what is re-directed from existing programs/areas, the impact on these existing programs and what savings are projected in existing health programs across the forward estimates from these new financial arrangements, including the inputs, assumptions and modelling underpinning these funding amounts;

(c)

the projected number of additional/new services this additional funding will provide in elective surgery treatments, in emergency department treatments, in expected numbers of patients to sign up to the diabetes spending measure, in additional general practitioner (GP) treatments in aged care facilities, including the inputs, assumptions and modelling underpinning these projections;

(d)

the $15.6 billion top-up payments guaranteed to the states by the Commonwealth in the period 2014-15 to 2019-20, including exploring the breakdown of expenditure relating to hospitals, outpatient services, capital expenditure, GP and primary healthcare, aged care and other areas of health expenditure;

(e)

the names, roles, structures, operations, resourcing, funding and staffing of any new statutory bodies, organisations or other entities needed to establish, oversee, monitor, report upon or administer the National Health and Hospital Networks, Primary Care Organisations and the funding channels to be established under the COAG agreements;

(f)

what arrangements are in place, or are being negotiated for states that have not signed up, nor fully signed up to the COAG agreements, including what contingencies have been put in place for states that may want to alter agreements in future;

(g)

the intent of the state and territory governments and their preferred number and size of Local Hospital Networks in each state and territory;

(h)

the number of hospitals which will receive: activity-based funding, block grant funding, or a mix of both;

(i)

aged care:

(i)

the 2 500 new aged care beds to be generated by zero interest loans,

(ii)

the 2 000 beds for long stay older patients to be established,

(iii)

the funding for the above, and

(iv)

the establishment of the Commonwealth Government as responsible for full funding, policy, management and delivery responsibility for a national aged care system;

(j)

mental health matters; and

(k)

any other related matter.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for two minutes.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Commonwealth government has reached an agreement on health reform with all states and territories, except Western Australia, which represents the biggest change to our health system since the introduction of Medicare. These changes are the end result of a comprehensive structural review of Australia’s health and hospital system by the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, an extensive consultation process to test the report’s recommendation and consultation and intense negotiations with states and territories culminating in the COAG agreement of 20 April. Just two days ago we released a budget that fully funds the health reform investments.

This referral to committee around the detail of the agreement is a duplication of the significant effort that has already taken place. In fact, we believe that the detail sought by Senator Fierravanti-Wells could be found within the publicly released documents which are in existence. These include the intergovernmental agreement on 20 April 2010; the document, A national health and hospital network for Australia’s future—delivering better health and better hospitals, released on 11 May 2010, which I table, and the 2010-2011 budget papers. Within that documentation are key milestones for implementing the various elements of the agreement. These clearly outline those areas where further consultation and negotiation will take place with states and territories and with key stakeholders prior to details being finalised. For these reasons the government opposes the motion.

Question agreed to.