Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the government’s key reform of delivering a National Health and Hospital Network to Australian families?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Today the government released the 2010 edition of Australia’s health. This is a major report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on the health of Australians. It bears some reading because it points to a critical factor, which is the impact of chronic diseases in our country. Diabetes is now three times as common as it was 20 years ago. Up to 32 per cent of all potentially avoidable hospital admissions are for people with diabetes. Secondly, the overall cancer rate has increased by four per cent in the decade to 2006 and it is projected that the number of new cases of cancer in 2010 will be around 115,000. That is a 10 per cent increase on 2006. Thirdly, 61 per cent of adults and 25 per cent of children were either overweight or obese in 2007-08 and the rate among children has been doubling and more than doubling over the last two decades.

The reason I emphasise these three conclusions of the health report by the AIHW is that, together with the ageing of the population, it underpins what we have now got to do with the reform of Australia’s health and hospital system. What we have had is the number of hospital admissions rising by 37 per cent in the decade to 2007-08. Health expenditure across our nation passed $100 billion for the first time in 2007-08, reaching $103.6 billion. Our hospitals cannot be expected to continue to shoulder the burden which arises from the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases together with the other admissions to our hospital system. That is why we need national health and hospitals reform. That is why the government today introduced landmark pieces of legislation to deal with this challenge, to help deliver the range of reforms that we have outlined through the National Health and Hospitals Network—a network which will be funded nationally and run locally.

The Federal Financial Relations Amendment (National Health and Hospitals Network) Bill 2010 will see the Commonwealth dedicate a third of GST revenue into the hospital system. It means that each time any Australian pays a dollar’s worth of GST at the shops, 33c of that will be dedicated to the health and hospitals system. That is an important reform because that funding helps deliver better outcomes for accident and emergency, better outcomes for elective surgery, better outcomes in terms of available hospital beds, better outcomes in terms of the availability of doctors and nurses in our system.

Under this reform the Australian government will take on 60 per cent of the efficient price for all public hospitals, 60 per cent of the buildings and equipment needs of our public hospitals and 60 per cent of the research and training undertaken in our public hospitals. And for the first time the Commonwealth will also become the sole funder of GP and primary health care and of aged-care services as well. The legislation today will remove the incentive to shunt patients from Commonwealth funded GP and primary-care services into the state funded hospital system. This is the blame game. It must be brought to a stop. The way in which you bring it to a stop is to resolve the fundamental funding arrangements which underpin the distribution of responsibilities between the Australian government and the states. The new funding arrangements will mean no more blame between governments about indexation rates and no more arbitrary cuts to indexation rates, as have happened in the past.

There was a further piece of health reform today. The government moved legislation to establish the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare. This will help reduce the harm caused by preventable errors, reduce healthcare costs resulting from unnecessary or ineffective treatments and formulate safety and quality standards with clinicians, professional bodies and consumers. Building on the foundation of this national system, the government is now investing $7.4 billion, starting on 1 July, to increase our capacity and to deliver more doctors, nurses and beds. This includes 1,300 new beds, 2,500 new aged-care beds or places, a four-hour target waiting time for treatment for accident and emergency and elective surgery being delivered on time for 95 per cent of patients. If you do not receive elective surgery within that clinically recommended time, you will receive free treatment at a public or private hospital. We are also funding 6,000 new doctors over the decade ahead, providing better financial support for 4,500 nurses and providing upgrades to around 425 GP and primary care clinics around the country.

These are fundamental reforms, fundamental reforms that cost money and that therefore require reform to Australian Commonwealth-state financial relations. The legislation introduced by the government will underpin the future investment in the health and hospital needs of Australia for the decade ahead. Had we not acted, our advisers concluded that there was a grave danger that our system would reach a tipping point.

That is the government’s plan. It is a clear-cut strategy. The alternative, as we know, is a Leader of the Opposition who as health minister ripped a billion dollars out of the system. We are growing the system by the investments that we have proposed to deliver better health and better hospitals to all Australians.