Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

We are keen, as I have said, to improve the accountability in hospitals. There is an exciting reform agenda that has a number of concurrent streams to do precisely what Senator Nash is referring to—to look at how we address, through COAG, state hospital systems from the Commonwealth. We are developing a new Australian healthcare agreement, due to be signed in December 2008. I am sure that the Liberals do not want to hear that we are in fact fixing the system. We are actually turning our attention to how we address this issue with a commitment—