Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is indeed a pleasure and an honour to follow a speaker like Senator Judith Adams. I am always very proud of the people in this parliament, mainly from this side, regrettably—regrettably in that there are not more—who have a real interest in and understanding of these issues. As Senator Adams indicated, she has practised as a nurse and worked in the health area in many other ways over a long period. The parliament and the people of Australia are all the better for the input that people like Senator Adams bring to debates such as this. Whenever I am uncertain about things in country areas, I refer to Senator Adams to get the real story. I have a general understanding of the situation and some of the needs which exist in country Australia, but it is always useful to refer to people, and to Senator Adams in particular, to get technical and accurate input to debates on issues.

As well as Senator Adams, on this side of the parliament we are very fortunate to have the input of Senator Eggleston, a very well-regarded medical practitioner from Port Hedland in his former days before he came to the Senate; Dr Mal Washer, a doctor from Western Australia; and Senator Patterson, who was a health professional. I have named only a few; there may well be others. It is certainly good to see parliamentarians with those sorts of skills and expertise coming into this chamber and lending the parliament and through the parliament the people of Australia their expertise on these issues.

With Australia experiencing the sorts of shortages we have in the medical workforce, it is important that the administrative processes are made more efficient and timely to ensure that appropriately qualified specialist and consultant physicians enter the workforce as quickly as possible. The purpose of the Health Insurance Amendment (Medical Specialists) Bill 2005 is to reduce unnecessary red tape for medical practitioners seeking to provide those specialist and consultant physician services under Medicare. It is proposed to do this by disbanding the state or territory specialist recognition advisory committees and allowing medical practitioners to make direct application to the minister or his delegate for approval for Medicare purposes. Under the new processes, registered medical practitioners will apply in writing directly to the minister through his delegate in the Health Insurance Commission for recognition as specialists or consultant physicians for the purposes of the act.

I recently attended an AMA gathering in Parliament House, and I was told that the specialist colleges had increased by 40.6 per cent training places in the colleges. But, whilst the training colleges for specialists are increasing their activities, all of the states are, regrettably, cutting training positions. There is no point in the colleges training specialists if the specialist positions in the hospitals are no longer there. It is with great sadness that I report that in my own state this situation is enormously difficult and underresourced by the state government.

I do not want to sound like a bad loser, but, regrettably, the people of Queensland have returned the Beattie government—a government which has done more to destroy the health system in Queensland than any in history. During the recent election campaign, I found some old posters that we were using at the election three years ago. We were able to use them again this year. The posters said: ‘Don’t reward Labor, with the mess they’ve made of the Townsville Hospital. Fix the Townsville Hospital now.’ They were posters we used three years ago. Unfortunately, the people of Queensland did not take the message then. We used them again this year and, regrettably, for any number of reasons—I guess it is because the people of Queensland did not have a great deal of confidence in the coalition leadership this time around—the administration that for eight years has just about destroyed the public health system in Queensland has been returned to government. It is particularly galling to me that Mr Beattie, in the pre-election advertising, would smile nicely at people and say: ‘Yes, it is a problem. I promise to fix it.’ The people of Queensland have been gullible in yet again falling for Mr Beattie’s promises.