Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, may I add at this first opportunity my congratulations on your reappointment to the Speaker’s panel. I am sure you will continue to do a great job, as you did during the last parliament. I rise tonight to speak on the National Health and Hospitals Network Bill 2010. This bill is part of the Labor government’s so-called answer to health reform announced by the former Rudd government as a distraction from things like the insulation debate. Like much of the legislation announced around that time, it lacks detail and common sense.

I am fully supportive of measures that improve frontline health services. There would not be a member in this House who would not want that improvement, especially if it is directed towards regional areas. My electorate of Barker is basically all rural and regional, and my constituents are always asking for improved health services—I am sure many other members of parliament would say the same. The problem here is that the legislation will not improve frontline health services in regional Australia. In fact, it would not even improve frontline health services in the city or anywhere else, and that is why I oppose this legislation.

When the Minister for Health and Ageing spoke about this bill recently in the House she said there was a need to increase capacity and to better connect care—what an interesting phrase that was. I would take that to mean that my constituents could see a doctor quicker, that local hospitals would not close down and that mental health would not be forgotten—but not so. I receive correspondence in my office all the time about health services, such as the long waiting times to see a doctor and especially the shortage of services in country towns.

Health is such an important issue for most people and they want to trust the government of the day when it comes to health. I know there are people who bought into the Labor government’s promise of health reform hook, line and sinker. I feel sorry for those people because they will be bitterly disappointed as this bill seeks only to increase bureaucracy—it will not improve frontline health services, it will not give us better hospital services and it will not benefit my electorate.

This bill seeks to expand the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and to create the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority. They are great bureaucracies but they do not deliver one health service. What is concerning is that the detail on expanding these authorities is not included in this bill. How can the Gillard government expect the coalition to stand in this place and pass legislation that has no detail? When the constituents of Barker call on me as their member I would rather tell them that I opposed this bill because I did not believe it delivered anything for them and that it lacked any detail on decent reform, than tell them I supported legislation that did not fully explain the intention of the bill.

I think it is quite amazing how health services in this country have actually gone in the last couple of decades. I am a great believer that nurses, for example, often did a great job when learning on the job, but that does not seem to happen now. They now have to get their university degrees and many of those people do not actually then deliver health services—they become health bureaucrats.

I think it is very interesting to look at the situation in Queensland. I am sure it is very similar all around the country but I know that in Queensland there are 19,000 doctors and nurses delivering health services. You would think that was pretty good, but there are actually 45,000 bureaucrats who are not delivering health services. I think one of the big problems in the health system in Australia is that we have become too bureaucratised and we are not actually delivering services.

The coalition cannot support this bill because it is wasted funding that could be better spent elsewhere. The coalition announced it would not proceed with funding for an independent and expanded commission, and that the funding would be used to offset the costs of the coalition’s plan for real action on hospitals and nursing policy. The funding the Labor government announced for the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority and the National Performance Authority just makes the problem worse by adding more bureaucrats and not enough health deliverers.

Our plan, for which we were congratulated by the experts, was $1.5 billion for mental health, in contrast to something like $270 million from the Labor government. You cannot always judge a policy by the number of dollars expended, although that tends to be the way that the Labor government talks about these issues—it is spending this much on this and this much on that—but there is no doubt that we ticked all the boxes when it came to mental health policy.

I had health workers contact me and tell me they were very pleased that the opposition was serious about mental health. It is a huge and growing problem in rural areas, as you would know, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom. They applauded our plan because it provided the services they needed—not more bureaucrats. This was what the people who work in the industry were telling me they needed. When the Gillard government decided to cut pivotal funding for mental health workers earlier this year I was stunned that a government could be so ruthless. Headspace is another vital service for youth and the Headspace sites in Barker were worried that they would become obsolete. Again, we see a government not concerned with real effects and not giving us the details.

I would have thought that after those opposite saw the backlash to their cuts to mental health they would have learnt from that, but here we are in this place yet again debating more legislation that promises the world and delivers very little. If the Gillard government took time out to consult industry professionals and those workers in the system that see what happens on the ground, this would be a very different debate indeed. If you ask any hospital what they need they would not ask for more red tape or more bureaucrats; they would ask for better frontline services and better management. If I went to my constituents in Barker and asked if they would prefer to see the number of bureaucrats increased, I can guarantee you that that is not what they want.

I believe that better management of hospitals lies in community-run hospitals, not in the added bureaucracy and red tape that this bill would carry with it. The coalition supports better frontline services and better general practices. Community-run hospitals are run by the people that know best, not by bureaucrats that have no idea what the communities actually need. I spent four years on a hospital board and I know a bit about what works and what does not, and bureaucracy does not always work. We all know we need a certain amount of it, but I think we have gone too far in that direction.

Labor’s reforms will not provide better services, and the delivery of services is the way we can actually judge what is happening in the sector. I have serious concerns about what these so-called reforms will mean and I ask the Gillard government to come forward and be honest about the detail of the legislation. I do not think the Minister for Health and Ageing has any idea what the detail is. I think she is in the dark just as we are on this side when it comes to Labor’s health reform. These reforms were promised by Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister, and were driven by a political agenda. He did not even both consulting the health minister. She was completely excluded from discussions. This is a totally compromised proposal.

While the Labor government are busy expanding their bureaucracy, hospitals are closing and patients are missing out on key health services. I draw the House’s attention to an issue in my electorate of Barker where I think that funding could be better directed. I am sure people across South Australia, and possibly even interstate, are starting to hear about Keith and their hospital. Even though it is a small town, the residents are certainly making a lot of noise, as they should because their hospital is not only being ignored by Labor but being given a death sentence.

The problem is that the Labor state government have cut Keith’s funding by 60 per cent. Could you imagine any hospital being able to continue to exist following a 60 per cent funding cut? On the basis of that cut this hospital will have to rely on their reserves and will only last another nine months. Residents are understandably upset and angry because after nine months they will have to travel 140 kilometres away to the nearest hospital when they have a perfectly good one in Keith already.

The hospital will be forced to close following the 60 per cent cut to their funding that was announced in the state budget. This is devastating news for the hospital and for the township. These cuts will be the end of the Keith hospital. It just cannot continue without funding. The state government unfortunately have been commenting in the media recently that the Keith hospital is a private hospital, as if it is a profit-making hospital. This is totally incorrect. It was built in 1954 by the community for the community, not by the state government or the federal government. It was built by the community and it has remained outside the state government bureaucracy. I note with interest that in a state Labor government seat, the McLaren Vale hospital, another so-called private hospital under the same criteria that the minister has been talking about, receives 10 fully funded beds. Keith hospital is only asking that their three beds continue to be funded in the same way they have been for many years.

The other fallacy that the minister has been putting out there is that the Keith hospital pays more for its nurses—as if somehow the management of Keith hospital are not very good at managing their hospital. In actual fact that is not the case. The nurses get eight per cent less than nurses in the state hospital bureaucracy because the Keith nurses love their community hospital and they want it to keep going.

I believe the federal Labor government should take notice of this issue because the federal government have invested quite heavily in this hospital. Labor and Liberal governments have contributed $1.3 million in total towards the Keith hospital, so it is in everyone’s interests if the hospital stays open. I actually congratulated the Labor government for funding the Keith hospital again, like I did when it achieved some funding when the coalition were in government. Keith hospital are just about to open the wing after investing about $800,000 in it. Guess what? It is going to have to close in nine months. How stupid is that? I would have thought that the federal minister would be very interested to know that all that federal taxpayers’ money has been spent and yet, because of a state government decision, the hospital will have to close. It does not make sense for the government to invest in a hospital that benefits the community and then let the hospital close while under their watch.

The Gillard government should display their interest in this hospital and ensure it does not meet an unfortunate end because of careless decisions. But I will give Minister Roxon credit because her department have met with me and on Thursday I will also be meeting with the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler. I hope they are taking notice, because if the Keith hospital closes—and it will close within nine months if this funding is not at least kept at parity—there will not be a hospital for the 200 kilometres between Bordertown and Murray Bridge. I think the locals are talking about erecting signs as you leave Bordertown or Murray Bridge that will read, ‘Please, don’t get sick because there will not be another hospital for 200 kilometres.’ This will be on the main highway from Adelaide to Melbourne, the Dukes Highway. There have been several deaths on that road, so it is just ludicrous to make a decision which will close this hospital. The Keith Hospital is the furthest hospital from which the rescue helicopter can retrieve patients without having to refuel on its way back to the Royal Adelaide Hospital. With the Dukes Highway running right past Keith this is very worrying.

I have listed the many concerns I have over the possible closure of Keith hospital, and I am not alone in my concerns. Twelve hundred people live in Keith and 1,200 came out to a public meeting last week, and they are demonstrating on the steps of the state parliament tomorrow. I wish them luck because this state government obviously does not understand the issue and it is about time that Labor started listening to the concerns of the local community.

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