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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-18 Daily Xml
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NATIONAL HEALTH AND HOSPITALS REFORM COMMISSION

Mr KENYON (Newland) (15:11): My question is to the Minister for Health. What has been the reaction to the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission's interim report?

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (15:11): On Monday the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission released its interim report. The report makes 116 reform recommendations which touch on all health services. The recommendations that have gained the most attention, however, have been the denticare proposal—not a very nice phrase I have to say: it's a bit hard to get your mouth around—and the need to concentrate on primary health care. We welcome the recommendation to increase the effort directed towards primary health care and, obviously, we are keen to work collaboratively with the federal government on this issue.

The current federal government does share our view that increasing primary health care is essential to managing the future growth of demand for acute hospital services. We have already established the GP Plus health care network in South Australia, with centres operating at Aldinga and Woodville, and major centres on their way at Elizabeth and Marion. The federal government has already indicated it will build three GP super clinics—and we will help fund at least two of them in South Australia—which are similar to our GP Plus health care centres. Of course, we would welcome an acceleration or expansion of this program. We understand that, for a federation to work well, it is important that different levels of government have clearly defined roles and functions. It is also important that the different levels of government work cooperatively.

The recommendation in the interim report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission that the commonwealth take responsibility for all primary health care, I believe, merits further consideration. The commonwealth, through Medicare payments to general practitioners, already chiefly has responsibility for primary health care. Implementing this recommendation would help to clarify a situation that, by and large, already exists. Greater clarity of roles and functions—and, consequently, clearer lines of responsibility between the different levels of government—is very important to good service delivery.

The state government is also keen for the federal government to examine the recommendations to establish a denticare style arrangement based on the Medicare model. There are far too many Australians on public dental waiting lists. The situation has not been helped by the blockage of the commonwealth dental health program by the federal opposition and the minor parties in the Senate. Their position in relation to that, in my view, is shameful. This government has reduced the waiting time for restorative dental care from 49 months when we came to office in mid-2002 to 19 months by providing additional funds ($56 million) for public dental services, and, with greater cooperation with the commonwealth, we could reduce waiting times further.

The state government is keen to work collaboratively with the federal government, but we will not shy away from our responsibilities to South Australians. I have made this clear to Dr Christine Bennett, Chair of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, whom I met yesterday. Funding and administering hospitals is difficult but is not something on which this government will give up. We are prepared to make the hard decisions necessary to prepare our health system to cope with the projected future growth in demand created by an ageing population. The opposition, sadly, is not.

The deputy leader's reaction to the commission's interim report was that it did not go far enough because it failed to recommend a total commonwealth takeover of all health responsibilities. This demonstrates clearly that the opposition has given up on health care in South Australia. The Australian reported:

Ms Chapman said the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had picked up the 'easy parts', left the states with the 'hard parts'.

In a media release put out by her on Monday, the deputy said:

We still have to fund and administer the most difficult parts of the health care system: hospitals.

Unlike the opposition, this Labor government is not afraid to tackle the difficult situations and make tough decisions. We want decisions that affect the health outcomes of South Australians made here and not by bureaucrats in Canberra. It is ironic that the Liberal opposition, which has attacked my decision to put the headquarters for country health in Port Augusta—'We don't want', they said (incorrectly, of course) 'Mount Gambier hospital run from Port Augusta'—yet supports every hospital in South Australia from Wudinna to Whyalla and Murray Bridge to Mount Gambier being run out of Canberra. I look forward to telling country South Australians about this new Liberal policy.

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