Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

In relation to the bill that is being debated at the moment, there is a proposal to spend over $100 million on advertising, on social marketing. I am suggesting to the House that as people who are responsible for the administration of the taxpayer funds that are proposed to be spent under this bill we should question whether or not that is an appropriate expenditure of money compared to other measures which this government could spend money on in the health portfolio. That is the point that needs to be made today.

This government is intent on building health bureaucracies. That is exactly what state Labor have done for the last 10 or 20 years. The difficulty for this government is that it has very great problems explaining to the Australian public why it is that it continues to bloat a health bureaucracy—not with people on the front line, not with doctors and not with nurses, not with people who are performing procedures that make life-changing events take place, such as cataract surgery for older Australians in particular—but by spending money on new agencies and putting money into advertising. That is what this bill proposes.

For argument’s sake, this bill does not propose anywhere, on my reading of it, that they would abolish equivalent numbers of positions within the department. They do not propose that there would be an offset of a number of places within the department, many of which are already performing this same work. That is the difficulty that the government has in relation to this bill.

There have been a number of recent comments which are relevant to this debate, and I think they are worth noting. Another member of the House of Representatives stated, as recently as last week:

The indiscriminate creation of new bodies, or the failure to adapt old bodies as their circumstances change, increases the risk of having inappropriate governance structures.

This in turn jeopardises policy outcomes and poses financial risks to the taxpayer.

The member went on to say:

Incorporating a new function within a department is almost always the preferred option because of the difficulties a small body faces in meeting its own needs.

Those opposite may be very interested—even the member for Shortland, with her limited understanding on this topic—to learn that those comments belong to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, the Hon. Lindsay Tanner, in a speech that he made to the Australian Institute of Company Directors on 14 October 2009. Quite obviously the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing in the Rudd government. It is quite extraordinary a week after the finance minister calls for a reduction of government agencies that the health minister creates another one.

The finance minister is quite correct though. How can the establishment of another agency, the employment of more bureaucrats and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars for advertising be a priority when our hospitals are overflowing? The government cannot afford to provide cataract patients with a full rebate when they have tried to remove funding for macular degeneration patients. Will the agency, for argument’s sake, be assessed in terms of its contribution towards achieving the targets and benchmarks of the National Partnership Agreement on Preventative Health, or is this funding unconditional? Reviews, agencies and more bureaucrats should not be your priority, Minister. Patients should be.

We learned that the advisory council of the agency will consist of up to 11 members, one member representing the Commonwealth government, one or two members representing state and territory governments and between five and eight members with expertise in preventative health, as nominated by health ministers or their delegates. Whilst the EM alludes to business and industry inclusion, it certainly is not specified. It is important that industry and business is very much a part of this process and that they are engaged. One of the most challenging aspects of preventative health is reaching a consensus on policy that will actually drive change. For policy to work in this area, it is important that engagement in the process is broad and inclusive. It will not succeed if a polarising us-and-them approach develops between academia, industry and business.

Today I have highlighted a number of reservations the coalition has with this bill. Firstly, there is the future reach of this agency—how far will it intrude into individuals’ rights to make their own lifestyle choices? Secondly, there is the duplicity of generating savings by cutting rebates for things such as cataract surgery and trying to remove assistance for people being treated for macular degeneration and then spending $102 million on lifestyle advertising and marketing. There is the lack of reasoning for another layer of bureaucracy. What savings will be made in the Department of Health and Ageing if preventative health is to be administered separately? Finally, there is the lack of engagement with industry to drive change.

Clearly, from all of our consultation with stakeholders in this area, we can see that this is a government that refuses to consult. They do not consult because they do not like what people are saying. This is a government, now two years into its term, that has not lived up to its election promises in relation to health. This is a crucially important area, because for over a decade there has been a complete neglect and indeed in some cases trashing of the health system by state Labor governments.

Preventative health is important—of course it is important. We all recognise that. But we do not need a government which is intent on building bureaucracies for the sake of doing it. We need tangible outcomes. We need for people to be engaged. We need there to be an idea of exactly how it is this group is going to engage with business and with industry and how it is that the Preventative Health Taskforce is going to deliver to the government the sorts of ideals that the government has not yet been able to enunciate. That is of course part of the problem with this government in relation to health. There is a lot of promise but very little delivery. Those are the concerns that the coalition expresses today in relation to this bill. We put the government on notice in relation to the areas that we will be looking at as we go forward. We would ask for the government to provide answers and responses to the legitimate questions that have so far been asked.

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