Page 1805 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
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Well, this one is not going to work. This will destroy the coordination that we have spent years working with the Medicare Local to build in this city. It will ensure that people lose their jobs. It will see an end to programs in preventative health and it will push more pressure onto the hospital system, without a doubt. That is what we are going to see if this change happens on 1 July next year. For all we know, a private health insurer will take over as the primary healthcare network for this city, driven by different motives, perhaps—different outcomes they want to seek. But that is potentially the scenario.
So do not blindly follow a review path just because Professor Horvath saw problems in other jurisdictions. He did not see those problems in the ACT Medicare Local. Just because there might be the need to consolidate the model and not have as many Medicare locals around the country, the fact is that the one in the ACT works. It works because of the staff who have invested so much time and energy. It works because the Health Directorate has helped to make it work by partnering with it, and because other NGOs in this community who have also embraced the model have campaigned and advocated for change in the primary healthcare system.
All of that is now at risk. We cannot just simply stand by as a legislature, as a parliament, to represent the community, and accept that those jobs should go, that the programs should go, that all the work that has been done in the last two years should be discontinued because the commonwealth government wants to save some money in the health system.
The reality is that the health system is expensive. It is going to continue to be expensive. If we have these short-sighted decisions which seek to return some small amount of savings to the budget then we have got bigger problems afoot, because the preventative health area is the key to ensuring that our hospitals do not buckle under the pressure of the burden of disease that is presenting itself in a tsunami-like way, heading for our shores. That is the big issue here. This is very short-sighted. We should be right to support the Medicare Local, support those local jobs, support the programs they do, support the work they do, and be brave enough to stand up, united, 17 of us, and say, “We don’t think it’s a good idea.”
I do not think you are going to lose too many friends over that, if you actually stand up for Canberra and say, “This is not a good idea.” Maybe it is a good idea in parts of New South Wales, but it is not a good idea here. We should be unanimous in our voice of opposition. It would certainly send a strong message to the ACT Medicare Local that we are prepared to fight for them and fight for the jobs that they perform in our city. Anything less than a unanimous vote is not good enough in this chamber.
Debate (on motion by Mr Rattenbury) adjourned to the next sitting.
Adjournment
Motion by (Ms Gallagher) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
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