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

I thank the Minister for Health and Ageing for those comments. I do not intend to get into a tit-for-tat with the minister. The advice I received in relation to the report at 10.13 this morning is that, due to time constraints in the Senate yesterday, the report is now scheduled for tabling this afternoon. That is the advice from the Senate Community Affairs Committee and that is the advice I relied on in making my comments. Obviously there is some confusion somewhere, but that is the advice I received in writing. That is the advice we have most recently received.

The point that needs to be made on all of this is that this has been another bungled affair. When it comes to the health portfolio in the Rudd government, it is one bungle after the next. We have seen over the course of the last two years repeated mistakes made not just in this chamber but in the other chamber as well. That is why people now are starting to question whether this is a government that is sincere in all it proposes on health. We have seen promise after promise in a number of areas that this minister has responsibility for that have not been delivered on.

There is great angst within the medical community about aspects of accreditation and about great big new bureaucracies which are being created under this government not just in relation to this bill but in relation to the most recent proposals by the Prime Minister at the COAG meeting on health. These great big new bureaucracies are not going to create greater efficiencies, they are not going to create better patient outcomes and they are not going to create better professional standards if the profession is not brought along with the government’s reform. I think there is a level of angst amongst many of the professions at the moment that this government conducts these vendettas not because of a desire to seek better patient outcomes but because of these ideological positions adopted particularly by the minister.

There will be further amendments that will be required to this bill in due course because there are, in my view, unforeseen difficulties. I suspect that we will be made aware of them as they come to light, as will the government of course. I ask that the minister accept that that is the case. It is a significant reform. We do believe that national registration and a breaking down of those state barriers is important. We do not accept the original position of the government on accreditation, but I do accept that there has been some shift by the government on this. But again it was a ham-fisted approach from the start and it undermines the government’s credibility. I do not think the Australian public believe anymore that this government will deliver on the promises that it makes. There will be unintended consequences, perhaps through no fault of the government but perhaps because of its ham-fisted approach. Either way, let us accept that there will be amendments required. I believe the minister should give an undertaking to the House that she will deal with those in a timely manner and in a way whereby the professions can accept that there is some give from the government in relation to some of the difficulties that will arise.

That is the position of the opposition. We have been supporting the process as best we can, but there was considerable difficulty in what was first proposed by the government. This is not a perfect model that is being put forward and the amendments that will need to be made today and in due course, I hope, will address some of the ongoing concerns that the professions have to this approach. We support the amendments on that basis.

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