14 February, 2011
Sky News – AM Agenda
Kieran Gilbert and Andrew Leigh MP
14 February 2011
8:35am
E & OE
Subjects: COAG Health Agreement, Nielsen Poll
KIERAN GILBERT:
Welcome back to AM Agenda. With me now here in the Canberra studio is Labor MP Andrew Leigh, good morning Andrew.
ANDREW LEIGH:
Morning Kieran.
GILBERT:
And in our Melbourne studio we have Liberal frontbencher Senator Mitch Fifield. Senator Fifield, thanks for your time. First of all, to you. Your Victorian Liberal colleague Ted Baillieu has signed on he’s been very complimentary of this deal. Colin Barnett of WA has as well. Barry O’Farrell is holding out, but you’d have to think – if Julia Gillard can win over the two Liberal Premiers – that there’s a fair bit of pressure on Mr O’Farrell to toe the line if he is indeed successful in New South Wales.
SENATOR MITCH FIFIELD:
Well Kieran you’ve got to keep this so-called deal in perspective. This is Labor’s third hospital reform deal in three years. In 2007 we had Kevin Rudd say that if the states hadn’t fixed the public hospital system by 2009 that he’d take it over. He didn’t do that he didn’t introduce legislation to give effect to a referendum. We then had the new concept of the ‘dominant funder’ the Commonwealth taking that role. I remember sitting in this studio in April last year when that deal was announced, and those two magic words ‘dominant funder’ were meant to solve the public hospital system. Essentially what we had then was a new accounting system which was meant to fix our public hospitals. Well, that all fell by the wayside. Nothing happened between April and today. Julia Gillard has completely junked the second health plan of Labor. We’re now onto the third plan, and Julia Gillard’s third plan is essentially to introduce a new post box. You take the same money, the same taxes, from the same taxpayers, and you give it to the same hospitals you just put it through a different post box. And that’s meant to magically solve everything. At the moment, we don’t have a deal – we have a heads of agreement. And we have no reason at all to think that this will result in any reform, in any improvement to patient outcomes, or that it will be any better than the previous two plans.
GILBERT:
Andrew Leigh, the Prime Minister has had to back away back down on a number of issues as Mitch has said. On the dominant funding position that the former Prime Minister had, on the claw back of GST, it’s certainly a different looking reform than what we had seen last year.
LEIGH:
Look I think it’s important with health not to get too caught up in the politics and personality of the whole thing over the substance. First of all, this is a big deal – $16 billion of new funding, 1300 new hospital beds. I think that will be welcomed by a lot of your viewers. But more importantly it starts to deal with some of the substantive reform challenges in health. We’ve known two important things about healthcare in this country for a number of years. First of all, Australians spend too much time in hospital, so our reforms are partly about trying to improve primary health care making sure GP services are better and that patients aren’t presenting in emergency rooms for things that a GP should have done. So part of our reforms are looking at that. The other is making sure that we’ve got the funding structure right, that we’re actually paying hospitals in such a way that makes sure that they do the most with that money. That’s what activity-based funding is, it’s a really important reform and it’s critical that we don’t undersell this new independent health authority which is going to do the pricing of that. It’s new stuff, but it’s critically important stuff for driving reforms in hospitals making sure all Australian hospitals are learning from the way in which the best hospitals do things.
GILBERT:
The Prime Minister was elaborating on that point about the central funder and the local networks, and how they would work together, in an interview she did with David Speers a little earlier this morning. Let’s recap a bit more of what the Prime Minister had to say specifically in that area.
JULIA GILLARD:
The states will make agreements with local hospital networks about what will happen in those networks. So you may agree with the local hospital network that they’re going to specialise in knee operations and hip replacements. That in a major city they’re going to really focus on elective surgery, driving down waiting lists, making sure people are seen on time. Then of course, because we’re funding activity, through an efficient price, we would step up to be partners in funding for all of that and we would all know where the money has gone, and what it’s gone for because of the funding body.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, this argument that the central pool of funds will help monitor, scrutinise where the money is going doesn’t that make sense in terms of transparency? So that at least people and patients know where the dollars are being spent?
FIFIELD:
Well it’s hard to follow with this Government. The central pool was abandoned under Kevin Rudd because it supposedly represented more bureaucracy. Julia Gillard previously said that the most important thing in hospital reform was that the Commonwealth is the dominant funder. Well the Commonwealth is not going to be the dominant funder in this system. The unnecessary bureaucracy – according to Kevin Rudd is now the centrepiece of this new health funding agreement. It’s just very hard to keep track of what Labor’s key benchmarks are here. Kevin Rudd said that he thought that a system which was nationally funded and locally run was the right approach. And we agree with those two principles, and that’s what we put forward at the last election that we should have local hospital boards and that we would look at having national funding. Those two key criteria, which Kevin Rudd said are the benchmarks for a good national hospital system, have been junked by Julia Gillard.
GILBERT:
And Andrew Leigh, you can respond, but also, the point that I think is a valid one, at least at this stage, is that this is just a heads of agreement. The final deal could well fall over, as you heard Barry O’Farrell in our interview earlier. He’s making it very clear that he is willing to junk the deal if he’s not happy with it, if he takes office – as most people expect – in late March.
LEIGH:
Well Kieran I think you’ve got agreement on the fundamentals from the politicians, and the public servants are going to sort out many of those details.
FIFIELD:
Gee, that’s encouraging.
LEIGH:
But let me come back to some of the stuff that Mitch was saying. Mitch is normally a substance guy, but this morning he seems very much caught up in ‘he said, she said’ games.
FIFIELD:
That’s all we have to go on nothing has actually happened.
LEIGH:
It’s important to focus on the big reforms local area networks. So we have local communities making decisions, investment in preventative health care to make sure people don’t come to hospitals, and increase transparency. We’re going to have a MyHospitals website – which mirrors the MyChild website for childcare, and the MySchools website for schools – that ensures Australians can find out how their local hospital is performing. So Australians will be able to keep track of what’s going on in this process make sure we’re keeping up to scratch with our targets of reducing emergency wait times, reducing elective surgery wait times. They’re the things that matter.
GILBERT:
OK let’s move on. I want to look at the Nielsen poll today Labor’s primary vote is 32%, one point lower than it was at any time under Kevin Rudd. Despite what was a difficult week for Tony Abbott last week, it’s not translated into increased support for the Prime Minister or the Government. That’s got to be a worry.
LEIGH:
Well Kieran while I was an academic at ANU, I worked on a range of topics, and one of them was the predictive power of polls two years out from an election. Turns out that a poll two years out from an election has absolutely no predictive power as to who’s going to win. That’s actually true of a poll one year out, even six months out. Polls are not particularly powerful. So you’re just wasting your time as a politician if you think you can learn anything from day to day polls. It’s much more important to focus on the reforms activity-based funding, transparency, more doctors, more investment in the healthcare system, not to mention the big topic of rebuilding Queensland, which I hope we will have a chance to talk about this morning.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, can I ask you about the poll, particularly in light of some the internal tensions that have been around within the Liberal ranks. Do you think the fact that Tony Abbott is still in front, that the Coalition is still in front, at least in terms of the polling numbers, that that might boost morale and try to smooth over some of the tensions?
FIFIELD:
Well you always prefer these sorts of poll numbers to the alternative, and I certainly agree with Andy that polls don’t have a great predictive power. What polls tell you is what people are thinking at the moment. But you don’t need polling to tell you what we know from the field evidence as Members and Senators being out in the community which is that people are very concerned about how this Government wastes money. That people are very concerned that this Government won’t have the appropriate mechanisms to spend the money for flood reconstruction well. And that’s part of our misgivings about the flood levy and Labor’s inability to fund the reconstruction without introducing a new tax. But look, today the issue is health, and the public will judge this Government on whether they can actually introduce health reform. We’ve seen nothing over three years, nothing has been achieved. We have a piece of paper today – that is the only achievement of Julia Gillard to get some signatures on a piece of paper, and the public will pay on results.
GILBERT:
The other thing that the Government wants to try to deliver in the short term is the flood levy. Andrew Leigh the economics committee is going to look at that starting this Wednesday the flood levy inquiry. Are you confident that that can be wrapped up and that those with concerns will be reassured? Certainly Tony Windsor has got some big concerns on the flood levy.
LEIGH:
Well Kieran I think it’s really important that we get to work rebuilding Queensland. Get some of those bridges, roads, the essential infrastructure back in place. That’s how we’re going to ensure that the impact on the economy, and the impact on people’s lives is minimised. So we have to move with a reasonable degree of pace on this levy. The levy itself is fair it’s going to be less than a dollar a week for sixty per cent of taxpayers. For somebody on $80,000 a year it’s less than the price of a cup of coffee. So we’re asking those who earn a little bit to pay a little bit in order to rebuild Queensland.
GILBERT:
The inquiry isn’t going to delay the passage of the levy if you can get the support of the cross benches is it? So the money can still flow, it’s not going to stop.
LEIGH:
Our inquiry is due to report back next Monday, so it will be reporting back on the day that Parliament resumes. And we’ve done that because we recognise that rebuilding Queensland is important. But I think what the inquiry is going to conclude is what most Australians recognise which is that a modest flood levy is appropriate when Queensland and of course Victoria are hit with floods of the magnitude that we’ve seen.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield, the Family First Senator Steve Fielding is going to back the levy as well, it turns out. And as Andrew said, the Nielsen poll shows more than 50% of people back the levy too. Has the Coalition backed the wrong horse on this?
FIFIELD:
We don’t determine our position on public policy matters on the basis of polls. We do what we think is in the national interest. And we don’t think that it is in the national interest to impose an additional income tax burden on Australians who are doing it tough. Those who haven’t been directly and personally impacted by the floods are still facing cost of living pressures. This Government wants to add to those with a carbon tax. We don’t think another tax should be added so we’re very happy to stand by our decision to oppose this new income tax hike.
GILBERT:
Senator Fifield thanks for your time today. Andrew Leigh appreciate yours too, great to see you both.
LEIGH:
Thanks Kieran.
FIFIELD:
Thanks Kieran.
GILBERT:
That’s all for this edition of AM Agenda. Join Ashleigh Gillon, 12:30 EDT for Lunchtime Agenda. I’m Kieran Gilbert, thanks for your time.
ENDS