Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present three ministerial statements relating to Australian participation in OECD working group on bribery; Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer and other health reforms; and East Timor.

The statements read as follows—

AUSTRALIAN PARTICIPATION IN OECD WORKING GROUP ON BRIBERY

On 17 and 18 June, Australia presented a comprehensive report on our anti-bribery framework, to the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, in Paris.

Australia is a member of the Working Group, which was founded in 1994 to monitor the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

Corruption has a negative effect on economies and seriously undermines trust in civil institutions, as well as severely damage the international trading reputation of all nations. 

Australia is committed to playing an active role in combating bribery of public officials around the globe.

Australia was responding to the Working Group report on Australia’s implementation of the Convention, published in January 2006.  The report is generally positive of Australia’s implementation, with recommendations for improvement focusing on three areas:

(i)

improving public and private awareness of Australia’s foreign bribery offence

(ii)

improving investigation and detection of foreign bribery, and

(iii)

specific measures for preventing and detecting foreign bribery.

Australia’s response to these recommendations has been a Government-wide project, with participation from more than 20 Government agencies. 

To ensure our anti-corruption systems accord with the Convention and world’s best practice, Australia has brought together:

• Federal, State and Territory law enforcement bodies;
• agencies responsible for domestic and international criminal and tax policy;
• our international trade and development agencies; and
• those agencies who work domestically to promote the high standards of the Australian Government.

Last week the OECD expressed its view that Australia’s implementation of the Convention was above average for OECD nations. 

There is still work to be done and the Government remains committed to combating foreign bribery.

COMMONWEALTH CHIEF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY OFFICER AND OTHER HEALTH REFORMS

Mr Speaker, members may be aware that one of the Government’s election commitments in health was to establish the position of Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer. I’m delighted to congratulate Ms Rosemary Bryant on the announcement today of her appointment to this role within the Department of Health and Ageing.

Mr Speaker, nurses are a critically important part of Australia’s health workforce. There are some 150,000 nurses working in our hospitals – both public and private – and around 245,000 nurses working in the health system more generally. Yet until today nurses have not had a proper voice within policy-making at the Commonwealth level. With Ms Bryant’s appointment to the role of Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, from now on nurses will have a strong voice within the Commonwealth government, not just on nursing workforce issues, but on the issues facing the health system more generally in which nurses play such a vital part.

In her role as Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, Ms Bryant will undertake a range of important roles:

• As the Government’s most senior adviser on nursing workforce issues, she will play help to shape policies which will strengthen the nursing profession as a career or choice;
• She will play a key role in developing a strategic and collaborative approach to nursing policy across both the Commonwealth and states/territories;
• Ms Bryant will advise the Government on implementation of existing commitments, including our plan to bring thousands of extra nurses back into the hospital workforce;
• She will help lead the maternity services review; and
• She will play a key role in the health reform debates and new policy formation that are so central to the Rudd Government’s long term view of the need to reshape our health system – from prevention right through to hospitals.  At every step of the way – nurses of one form or other play a central role. 

Rosemary Bryant comes to the role of Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer with a wealth of knowledge and experience. She is currently Executive Director of the Royal College of Nursing, and has worked in a wide range of hospitals and community settings. She was previously the Director of Nursing Policy and Planning in the Victorian Government, and the Director of Nursing at Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Ms Bryant was elected as a member of the Board of the International Council of Nurses (ICN) in 2001 and was elected as its Second Vice President in 2005. She has also provided advice to the World Health Organisation on nursing in Nepal.

One of the first tasks I’ll be asking Ms Bryant as Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer to undertake is to lead the Government’s Maternity Services Review. This Review – which was another of the Government’s election commitments – is a first step towards developing a comprehensive plan for maternity services into the future. 

This piece of work will canvass a wide range of issues relevant to maternity services, including pregnancy, birthing, postnatal care, as well as care for parents who have lost babies. The Government wants to ensure we have the best system possible in place to provide high quality care for mothers and newborns, because we recognize that early care is the key to giving children the best start in life.

I will be asking Ms Bryant as Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer to lead this Review, because one of the things the Government would like to see come out of the Review is the potential for a greater role for midwives in the provision of maternity services. Midwives are highly skilled, highly qualified health professionals – and we believe there is scope for them to be playing a greater role in the provision of maternity services around the country.

The Government has also announced recently a number of other very important policy initiatives, in which the Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer will play a leading role, which are part of this Government’s agenda to shape a health system designed to tackle the challenges of the future.

Key among these is the development of a National Primary Care Strategy. The Strategy will look at how to deliver better coordinated, more efficient, more accessible frontline care to families across Australia.  Practice nurses, community nurses, district nurses, diabetic educators (the list could go on) are already part of that frontline – but we want to consider if all health professionals skills are being properly utilised and supported to provide access to top quality care at all times.

In particular the development of the Primary Care Strategy will focus on:

• Better rewarding prevention in primary care;
• Promoting evidence-based management of chronic disease;
• Better supporting patients with chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma to manage their condition;
• Supporting the role GPs play in the health care team;
• Addressing the growing need for access to other health professionals, including practice nurses and allied health professionals like physiotherapists and dieticians; and
• Encouraging a greater focus on multidisciplinary team-based care in primary care settings.

Dr Tony Hobbs, a rural GP from Cootamundra in NSW and the current Chair of the Australian General Practice Network is leading an external reference group to advise the Department of Health and Ageing on the development of the Primary Care Strategy.

I will be asking the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer to be involved in the development of the Primary Care Strategy – given the important role that practice nurses play in primary care settings, and the scope, amongst other things, for looking at how the roles of practice nurses as well as nurse practitioners might be expanded. The development of the Primary Care Strategy will of course also examine critical questions of workforce more generally.

Alongside this work, a review of the Medicare Benefits Schedule primary care items is also being undertaken – with a focus on reducing red tape for doctors, simplifying the Medicare schedule, and giving more support to prevention. Just as importantly, we are undergoing extensive reform in the hospital sector as well – investing more heavily than the past government in public hospitals and working through COAG and the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission to see how we can mould our health system and workforce to meeting the needs of the Australian community into the next decades.  The voice of doctors and specialists in this debate is critical, but so too is the expertise of others, notably the large nursing workforce in our hospitals and the increasingly specialised role they play in everything from aged care, to child and maternal health, to dialysis and critical care.

The position of Chief Medical Officer has existed since 1985 to provide clinical medical advice to the Commonwealth Government (prior to which the Secretary of the Department of Health was always a medical doctor). The Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer will play a complementary role on nursing issues. We will continue to work with and engage with professional and stakeholder organisations across the spectrum, especially in allied health, but we welcome the source of ready advice to Government from a dedicated nursing adviser during this busy reform era.

These policy initiatives, including the announcement of the appointment of the Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer, are about planning for a health system which is designed to tackle the challenges of the future.

This Government wants to take a strategic approach to health workforce issues, in particular as they relate to nurses, the largest single group in the health workforce; and taking a strategic, long-term approach to the provision of services including maternity services and primary health care – the latter which is of fundamental importance if we are to keep Australians healthy and out of hospital.

I’m delighted once again to congratulate Rosemary Bryant on her appointment to the position of Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer and I look forward to working with her, on behalf of all nurses and the broader community, and welcome the important role she will play in the Government’s health reform agenda into the future.

East Timor

Mr Speaker the Foreign Minister and I recently had the opportunity to discuss Security Sector issues in East Timor with the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General, Dr Atul Khare. Dr Khare and I discussed the importance of security and stability to international development efforts in East Timor. We agreed that an ongoing strong role for the UN Police will be vital to ensure that the East Timorese Police have sufficient support to carry out their duties and increasingly assume the mantle of law and order in the country.

Dr Khare and I also shared the view that any future drawdown of the UN Police mission in East Timor needs to be based on the achievement of performance benchmarks by the East Timorese Police. When these benchmarks are met any drawdown would then be managed modestly, cautiously and in consultation with Australia.

Mr Speaker, East Timor is an enduring security interest for Australia. As one of our nearest neighbours we have a strategic and a humanitarian interest in assisting East Timor to develop and grow as a secure, stable and democratic nation.

Like so many new nations, East Timor has faced struggles and challenges as it has emerged into the world. As a country with evolving state structures, political conventions and facing many challenges relating to poverty, unemployment and a lack of infrastructure, East Timor has grappled with instability and violence for much of its brief independent life.

Dealing with such instability and creating the conditions for growth, security and development are long-term tasks. The Australian Government is committed to a Whole-of-Government approach to East Timor’s development, Defence is committed to working with other Australian Government agencies and the International Community to provide the conditions and institutions necessary to create the stability and security that development activities need in order to take hold.

Mr Speaker, my view of East Timor is one of optimism. This optimism is not merely born from hope but rather it is the optimism born from the knowledge that the Australian Defence Force is working hard and working smart to build a stable East Timor through effective operations and targeted assistance.

Defence has been approaching this in two ways. Firstly in response to specific security incidents in April 2006 Australia has deployed and leads the International Stabilisation Force known as the ISF. The ISF is a joint force of around 750 Australians and 170 New Zealanders that are there to provide meaningful back up to the United Nations and East Timorese Police. This force has been remarkably successful in calming the situation and giving the Police the support they need to enforce and promote the rule of law.

The attacks on President Horta and Prime Minister Gusmao by disaffected former East Timorese soldiers earlier this year were a setback for the country but a setback I now believe has been overcome. Australia’s rapid response to these attacks and the prevention of follow up violence is a testament to the professionalism of the ADF and their knowledge and expertise in East Timor. Since these attacks outbreaks of violence have been avoided and significant progress has been made by the East Timorese Government in addressing and resolving the issues of the disaffected former soldiers. The ADF contribution to the International Stabilisation Force will continue to work with the East Timorese authorities and the United Nations to provide the assurance they need to do their work.

The second way that defence is assisting to create stability is by building the East Timorese security institutions, in particular the East Timorese Defence Force known as the F-FDTL. Through the Defence Cooperation Program, Australia is working hard to build the core skills necessary for a modern and effective Defence Force.

Under the Defence Cooperation Program, Australia has embedded advisers in key areas to assist in the capability development of the F-FDTL and Ministry of Defence. There are currently 18 Australian Defence advisers, both military and civilian, in East Timor. These advisers include specialists in Communications, Medical, Logistics, Engineering, Finance and Strategic Policy. We will also be deploying an additional 14 advisers to further build the capacity of the F-FDTL.

The Defence Cooperation Program is also funding projects including a Specialist Training Wing to develop soldiers with engineering, communications and medical skills as well as improving the communications fit out of F-FDTL bases. In addition East Timorese soldiers receive English language training and general education courses so that they can undertake complex military instruction in Australia at places like the Royal Military College at Duntroon.

Recently the Australian Government has approved an enhanced package of Defence Cooperation for East Timor that will build local capacity to undertake nation building engineering tasks, improved maritime security capabilities and develop a peacekeeping role. We are also undertaking the building of armouries to ensure that East Timorese weapons are held securely and reduce the risk of weapons falling into the wrong hands as has occurred in the past.

Building the capability of the Defence Force is only one part of improving the Security Sector in East Timor. Defence maintains extensive links with the United Nations and the Australian Federal Police to ensure that programs such as the Police Development Program and other Security Sector reform initiatives marry up with the work we are doing on the military front.

All of this effort can only happen in an environment of cooperation. Australia works closely with New Zealand, the United Nations and the Government of East Timor to ensure that the assistance we are providing is targeted, welcomed and appropriate to the broader development goals for the country. In turn my Department works hard to make sure that the Defence component of Australia’s assistance complements the efforts of the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AUSAID and other Australian Government agencies.

This effective application of Civil Military Cooperation underscores the important work that will be undertaken by the Asia Pacific Centre for Civil Military Cooperation that is being established in Queanbeyan under the guidance of my Parliamentary Secretary, the Member for Eden Monaro.

Mr Speaker, as I discussed with My East Timorese colleague Dr Julio Tomas Pinto at the Shangri La dialogue in Singapore late last month, Australia stands ready to assist East Timor to develop in any way we can. Helping to build a solid, well trained and apolitical Defence Force for East Timor is one way that my Department can create the conditions necessary for stability to take hold and for democracy and prosperity to flourish.

Mr Speaker let me close by taking the opportunity to pay tribute to three men who have played an important role in our success in East Timor and operations elsewhere. On July 3 Vice Admiral Russ Shalders, Lieutenant General Peter Leahy and Air Marshal Geoff Shepherd will retire as Chiefs of their respective services.

On behalf of the Government, the Parliament and the Australian people I pay tribute to the three service chiefs for their professionalism, their dedication and their leadership.

I thank them for their service and wish them the very best wishes for the future.