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Home > Ministers > The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP - Minister for Health > Media Hub > Transcript 4BC with Gary Hardgrave 5pm, EADT Time, Tuesday, 23 October 2012

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PDF printable version of Transcript 4BC with Gary Hardgrave 5pm, EADT Time, Tuesday, 23 October 2012 (PDF 269 KB)

23 October 2012

E & O Only

Gary Hardgrave: Meanwhile, the state Health Minister, Lawrence Springborg, has sparked a, well, a big swing-back from the federal Health Minister, suggesting that $342 million has been stripped from Commonwealth support for Queensland Health and blah-de, blah-de, blah.

Look, bottom line here is that the state governments provide beds, hospitals, facilities, some of it subsidised, some of it not, directly by the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth government funds services and procedures. There are these Commonwealth-state health arrangements and there's always this pushback. As the feds put more funds in, state governments - and I'm speaking as somebody who's been around the federal system - state governments tend to retreat, and vice versa. That seems to be what Lawrence Springborg is saying.
The federal Health Minister, Tanya Plibersek joins us. Well, Minister, does this help any Queenslander get a spot in a Queensland hospital, this debate?

Tanya Plibersek: Well, I don't think a debate, a finger-pointing debate helps anyone but I think if the state Health Minister, Lawrence Springborg, says things that are not true it's pretty important for me to correct the record.

Gary Hardgrave: Yes, I agree.

Tanya Plibersek: He's talking about funding cuts. Next year we'll put about $3.1 billion into Queensland Health, the following year 3.2, the following year 3.3, the following year 3.7. Now, I'm rounding up but it's a 21 per cent increase over the next four years.

What Lawrence Springborg's complaining about is a formula that the states and territories agreed to that says the number of people you look after affects the funding you get from the Commonwealth.
So he's saying that even though the population hasn't grown as he expected, he should still get the funding that he wants.

Gary Hardgrave: That's the usual state government claim against the feds, though.

Tanya Plibersek: Well, I think, you know…

Gary Hardgrave: That's the business as usual stuff, right?

Tanya Plibersek: I think it was Peter Costello that said never stand between a state premier and a bucket of money.

Gary Hardgrave: He did say that. You've correctly quoted him, Minister.

Tanya Plibersek: But the thing is that when funding's going up by 21 per cent, I just can't let him walk around saying that we're cutting funding. He's complaining because it's not growing as quickly as he'd like but he signed up to a population-based funding growth model and the population hasn't grown as he expected.

Gary Hardgrave: Did he sign up or did the previous government sign up?

Tanya Plibersek: No.

Gary Hardgrave: In other words, has Lawrence had this debate with you?

Tanya Plibersek: No, well, actually premiers have had it with the Prime Minister. It's not a debate that health ministers have had but it's the agreement that was signed last year.

Gary Hardgrave: See, Minister, I remember back in the 2007 federal election, it's very clear in my mind some days more than not and it's almost five years later in a month or so's time. Kevin Rudd, then leader, made a big story about ending this blame game, having the feds maybe looking at, you know, having a greater control over health. I mean, what's happened to the great master plan of maybe just one level of government looking after health?

Tanya Plibersek: In fact we did want to take on a greater responsibility for health care and the Prime Minister couldn't get the states to agree to the level of responsibility we wanted to take on but we are moving to a 45 per cent and then a 50 per cent funding share of the efficient growth in hospital prices and that is kind of - sounds like gobbledegook…

Gary Hardgrave: Yes, I was going to say can you explain - please explain, Minister.

Tanya Plibersek: Look, the bottom line is that between now and 2020 we'll put an extra $16.4 billion into our state hospital systems and that, of course, is on top of the funding that we are completely responsibility for, things like, you know, your GP visit funded under Medicare or the subsidy that you get paid so that you can afford medicines.

So there's a lot of things that we're completely responsible for and we're taking on a bigger share also of those responsibilities that we share with the states and territories.

Gary Hardgrave: But, Minister, does money actually solve this problem? Because if they're running the hospitals - this is state governments, I'm not just talking about the current Queensland government but state governments - if they're running the hospitals and you're funding it, they're really just taking your money and running and doing whatever they like.

Tanya Plibersek: Yes, in fact, we've done some very good work in recent years to make all of these things more transparent so that we've said to the Queensland government, you have to tell us how many people you're treating and you have to tell us how they're - you know, what sort of operations because a hip replacement obviously costs a lot more than an ingrown toenail to treat.

So by having that sort of information available to us and because we are putting our money into a bucket and the Queensland government are putting their money into the same bucket we can see how much are they putting in, how much are we putting in and what do we buy in terms of numbers of patients treated, how long they have to wait, how long they're waiting in emergency, all of those things are becoming much more transparent because of the, I suppose the conditions we've attached to our extra funding.

Gary Hardgrave: But do you feel - do you feel some empathy, some concern, maybe sympathy's a better word, for Lawrence Springborg with the $1.253 billion fix-up of a health payroll system to pay the workers, the doers in the hospital system? I mean, there's been a real stuff-up here in Queensland and that's a big hole in anybody's program.

Tanya Plibersek: I feel really sorry for the workers who had to put up with it while it was happening and…

Gary Hardgrave: Well, they still are.

Tanya Plibersek: Yes, and I know that anyone who, you know, any health minister has funding pressures but what we just did yesterday in the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook was introduce the savings that we thought would affect people, frontline services, doctors and nurses, patients, the least and what disappoints me about the Queensland government approach is they've cut almost a billion dollars from hospitals, they've cut 4140 workers. That affects frontline services. And then to try and turn around and blame us for it when our funding continues to increase is - it's a bit - it's a bit rich, really.

Gary Hardgrave:: Well, either way you've tampered around the edges again with private health insurance, which is going to make it more difficult for some families to hold onto that.

Tanya Plibersek: Gary, I should…

Gary Hardgrave: The public sector is going to get loaded up again.

Tanya Plibersek: Look, Gary, I'll tell you, I mean, people shouldn't overstate the difference this will make. It will mean about $14 for an individual over the course of a year and about $28 for the average family over the course…

Gary Hardgrave:: It's just another $28, Minister. I mean, the point is, people are just sick to death of it. It's another $28 here, maybe another $14 there. People are just fed up with this.

Tanya Plibersek: But, you know, Gary, what that buys is kids' dental. The reason that we have to make these savings is because we invest in new things and for 3.4 million children it's going to be as easy to go to the dentist…

Gary Hardgrave: Hang on, hang on, Minister.

Tanya Plibersek: …as it is now to go to the GP.

Gary Hardgrave:: The reason you've got to make these savings is because the Treasurer told us yesterday because income from mining hadn't come in, that people aren't spending money in the community and all you've done, from yesterday's announcement, is load up the cost of living to Australian families, yet again.

Tanya Plibersek: No, you know, Gary, I think 28 bucks a year for the average family for the sort of investments that we're making in kids' dental, in new medicines coming on, in increased funding to states and territories for their hospital systems, all of these things have to be paid for somehow. We need to keep a rein on spending and you mentioned private health insurance. That's the fastest growing area of Commonwealth health expenditure and if I ask…

Gary Hardgrave:: Oh, no, no, I would have thought - I would have thought debt. I mean, repaying debt, $143 billion in debt that wasn't there five years ago would have to have been the biggest growth in Commonwealth expenditure.

Tanya Plibersek: Commonwealth health expenditure, private health insurance.

Gary Hardgrave: Oh, health expenditure, right.

Tanya Plibersek: But Gary, you know, I know - I know you're going to want to talk about debt. We have the lowest government debt in the developed world and we came though the global financial crisis because we invested in jobs: 200,000 jobs were kept because of our stimulus package…

Gary Hardgrave: Mmm.

Tanya Plibersek: …and, yes, we need to repay that debt now. Times are getting better. We've seen - you know, we saw a big decline in mining revenue and now we're seeing that come back.

We've still got, by international standards, low unemployment, we've got low government debt, growth is on trend, we've got a big investment pipeline, people are going to keep investing in our - particularly in our mining industry now. That's exactly the time that we need to get the budget back to surplus. That's why…

Gary Hardgrave: If you wanted to cut back expenditure, why not put off the NBN for 12 months? We could have actually met Wayne Swan's ambition for a surplus next year by not having NBN expenditure for just 12 months.

Tanya Plibersek: You know, the NBN is going to make a big difference to the productivity of Australia…

Gary Hardgrave: You reckon?

Tanya Plibersek: …over the long term.

Gary Hardgrave: I've heard the line, Minister, and I'm pretty sure - I'm not even going to - I'm not even going to waste your breath in expressing it again but we appreciate your time, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek.

Tanya Plibersek: It's a pleasure to talk to you.

Gary Hardgrave: Cheers, thank you very much, Tanya Plibersek, federal Health Minister.