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

I want to address briefly those remarks and again I am sure they are held sincerely. There is no filibustering going on. The fact is that we have asked questions, Member for Lyne, and we have not received adequate responses. The member for Lyne may well be satisfied with what the government has put up. He has expressed some concerns and he is going to take a certain course of action. I respect that. It is his right to do that as a member of this parliament. We have not sought to cut short his contribution, and nor would we.

But we have serious misgivings about this bill. Many of the reasons that you stated in your earlier contribution, Member for Lyne, cause us even more grief because we think that this government, by moving its 29 amendments, is without precedent in this public debate about health. They are substantive amendments, as I say—they are not 'tidy up' amendments—and they deserve an adequate and fulsome response from the minister. So, yes, we are frustrated, as I said before. There is no question about that.

The Bills Digest talks about these points. It says:

It is unlikely that the Authority, as a single entity, will be able to achieve these objectives …

Does that not cause the House concern? It goes on to say:

This Bill does not provide any details on how the three national governance agencies will work together to deliver improvements in the Australian health system.

That is exactly the point that we are trying to make. These are reasonable questions asked by the people from the library who prepare the Bills Digest. They are not members of the coalition, they are not Independents, they are not people who support or oppose the government—

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