Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Clearly, Senator Pratt has lost her copy of the Constitution. I am very happy to lend mine to you, Senator Pratt, and I will even flag section 57 for you, bright yellow, big writing, so you can read it perhaps for the first time.

I rise today to support the motion of Senator Abetz about the Prime Minister’s disgraceful complaining about the scrutiny by this chamber. All this huffing and puffing hides the inadequacy of his government and the fact that the wheels are really starting to fall off the Prime Minister’s bandwagon. We have a mess over pink batts, a mess over the Julia Gillard memorial halls and a mess on the ETS. The ETS would have cost the Illawarra 12,000 jobs had it been passed. Thanks to this Senate not passing it, those jobs have been saved. We have a mess with the resources tax and again this has an impact on the Illawarra.

Now, of course, the much trumpeted great, grand plan for hospitals is falling apart. I think today we are really seeing the fraud that is this so-called health reform. It is vital that this chamber has the ability to scrutinise these sorts of misleading and deceptive actions. Indeed, it has been the role of the Senate that has helped to unravel this process. There is today’s spectacular backflip by the Prime Minister. Interestingly enough, Minister Roxon did not even know about it. Little wonder she is not very happy about the release of the document; that was very clear at the press conference this morning. She is a little bit touchy about the fact that the document was released by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. She did not know about it and of course then had the audacity to blame the opposition and the media for aiding and abetting what she calls ‘a beat up’—touchy.

I go briefly to the National Health and Hospitals Network agreement that was signed between all the states and territories except Western Australia and the Commonwealth. There it is in black and white. It says, ‘The Commonwealth will establish a national funding authority to oversee a National Health and Hospitals Network Fund and the distribution of Commonwealth funding contribution through this fund in line with other sections and other mechanisms dotted throughout this agreement.’ Indeed the funding authority is so fundamental to this agreement that references to it are littered throughout this document.

Let’s have a look at the reasons that this government wanted the funding authority in place. Let’s have a look at the red book; this is the book that came out after COAG, and there it is, on page 49: ‘Reforming funding arrangements for public hospitals.’ I have to put this on the record. This is the reason the government thought it was so imperative to set up this authority:

States have also agreed to be transparent about their funding contribution for each public hospital service, by making payments on an activity basis through Funding Authorities. There will be no scope to divert these funds for other uses, and no scope for health departments to use the money for bureaucracy. This will give hospitals more funding certainty …

Et cetera.

Transparent funding arrangements will also support transparent performance reporting and drive continuous improvement within each public hospital.

That is why it was so important that this funding authority be in place; it was supposed to underpin the transparency and the accountability of this grand plan.

Three weeks ago, when we sat in estimates we were told, ‘Yes, this authority is alive and well—