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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Ludwig) to a question without notice asked by Senator Fierravanti-Wells today, relating to health.

I rise to take note of answers given by Senator Ludwig in relation to what has now become the debacle of health reform in this country. Labor’s so-called hospital grand plan is collapsing around this government’s ears. Despite all the huffing and puffing by Julia Gillard and Labor we are seeing these changes for what they originally were—that is, heading back to business as usual in our hospital systems. Of course if New South Wales is anything to go by, they will be the decrepit hospital systems that have been the legacy of 16 years of Labor in New South Wales.

My question to Senator Ludwig was directed at the assertion—and it has been only an assertion; the whole thing has been just smoke and mirrors—of federal funding and local control. Let me just examine that. Federal funding, of course, disappeared the moment the cameras were no longer on it. We had the much-trumpeted national funding authority. The national funding authority was to be the mechanism in these changes that would deliver much-needed transparency. In fact, if you go back to the red book, which seems a distant memory, there you have it. It outlines the necessity for transparency and accountability. They were so concerned with ensuring that ‘scarce health dollars’ be directed to hospital services because they did not trust the states. So what happened? All of a sudden the national pricing authority disappeared. Interestingly enough, the decision was made through the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Minister Roxon was left looking like a stunned mullet because she did not really know about it. The decision had been made by Dr Rudd’s department.

Then we had the other debacle, the other lie about this so-called reform: the perpetrated misconception about local control. You only have to look at the nitty-gritty of the agreement—which of course is not an agreement in the true sense of the word because it has no legal binding between the Commonwealth and the states—on page 14 and there it is in black and white: the clinical expertise on the local hospital networks will come from outside the local hospital networks. What is the point of having a local hospital network when the clinical expertise, the starting point, comes from outside the hospital network?