Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Assistant Minister for Health (Senator Nash) to questions without notice asked by Senators McLucas and McEwen today relating to health funding.

Today was an opportunity for Senator Nash, the Assistant Minister for Health, to clarify a statement that she made in question time yesterday when she said:

… there is a range of programs across portfolios for which we will be determining whether they are delivering appropriate and efficacious service.

To opposition senators that sounded like a program of review that was being undertaken in the Department of Health, a meticulous program of review. So it was reasonable then for us to ask how and by when these determinations will be made. Unfortunately, the answer is the National Commission of Audit, which is a very, very different answer to the answer we received yesterday.

Senator Nash said that there was a commission of audit and that we all knew about that. That is fine, but that does not fit with what happened to the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council. Given there is a commission of audit, why is it that the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council were unceremoniously defunded just the other day? There is no logic to that. On the question of how and by when these determinations will be made, frankly, there was no answer at all. I then asked the minister to give a categorical assurance to the Senate that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the Medicare rebate and Medicare Locals would be quarantined from any cuts. We did not get any reference to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Medicare rebate, which will be very concerning to the community—two important elements of our health system that are very much cherished and are very important to the health of our nation.

But the minister did say that Medicare Locals would be under review and she did say that it was inappropriate to pre-empt the outcome of that review. That sends a strong message to those people who are working in Medicare Locals. That says something very clearly to the people who are delivering the front-line services in the Medicare Locals. That also fits with exactly what Minister Dutton said last weekend. On Sky, he was asked: 'Do you reaffirm Tony Abbott's commitment that no Medical Locals will close?' He did not. He was given an opportunity to say that they were not going to change any of the services in Medicare Locals and he said:

I think that that should be able to do its work, [and I'll] come back with recommendations, and we can make decisions about that which we accept, and that which we reject.

That is a clear message: there are going to be big changes in Medicare Locals. We know that this will happen. There was an absolute push-back from the then opposition when we introduced fantastically coordinated services in the community that are providing direct services, particularly in mental health, to people right across our country.

I then gave Senator Nash the opportunity to back her Prime Minister's statement on the ABC on 1 September that there would be no cuts to health. This was a gimme. This was an opportunity for the minister to say, 'Yes, I support my Prime Minister.' But she did not say that. She did not say that there will be no cuts to health. We asked a couple of times because there was a lot of avoidance in her answer, but she did not say there would be no cuts to health. There is a lot of nervousness in the health sector. There is a lot of nervousness in the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council—nervousness meaning they have gone into liquidation. There is a lot of nervousness in the Department of Health with the establishment of the business service centre, where people are being sent to work—some kind of gulag. People will potentially lose—

Senator Abetz interjecting—

Read the Senate estimates. Read what happened in Senate estimates and you will find out. There is a lot of nervousness in Health Workforce Australia and a lot of nervousness in Medicare Locals. Frankly, there is a lot of nervousness in the community. If we cannot get an unequivocal commitment from the Assistant Minister for Health that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Medicare rebate will be quarantined from any cuts by this government, people will be extremely concerned.