Mr BOB BALDWIN (4:53 PM) —As I speak on the amendments which have been moved on behalf of the government in relation to financial assistance conditional on entry into agreement, I think we need to reflect on the Labor Party's record on health care over the 13 years from 1983 to 1996. That record was absolutely appalling, as we all know—and even my Labor colleagues in this chamber would begrudgingly agree.

Speaking of poor records, let us look at New South Wales. For all appearances, the New South Wales health system seems to have been run into the ground. This is despite the absolute dedication of the health professionals in my electorate of Paterson and the operation of both private and public hospital institutions in areas such as Maitland, Dungog, Gloucester—and, of course, not forgetting the polyclinic at Nelson Bay. Indeed, this extends right across the Hunter, including the acclaimed John Hunter facility. No slick PR campaign across our airwaves which is supported, authorised and endorsed by the New South Wales government is going to change bald facts.

The New South Wales health system has some major problems—problems such as are had in any other Western health care system—which the current health care agreement on offer now on the table will help to address. Just to keep things in perspective, the New South Wales 1997-98 base grant entitlement funding equates to $1.472 billion. The base funding under the new AHCA for 1998-99 equals $1.528 billion—an increase of 3.76 per cent for New South Wales. It equates to an extra $55.4 million extra in one year alone for base funding for New South Wales hospital services, and $58.2 million in new funding for veterans' health services provision in my state. It would deliver up to $41.3 million under the `cut waiting lists' incentive and, of course, extra money for capital works.

But NSW's claim—from the mouth of Dr Refshauge—to obtain, with the rest of the states collectively, an extra $1.1 billion in the first year and $5.5 billion over five years in hospital funding is just not cricket. And that is even on top of the growth in forward estimates, which I outlined earlier. Indeed, the good doctor's claims for additional funding under the new health agreement are about wanting to take his bat and ball and head home. They ring hollow when the extent to which costs are shifted onto the Commonwealth by the New South Wales public hospital system is taken into account.

According to Dr Refshauge, New South Wales does not cost shift to the Commonwealth. But example after example of cost shifting has been exhibited. For example, there is the Nepean Hospital in outer Sydney, admitting patients from accident and emergency as private patients when they have asked to be admitted as public patients. There is the St George Hospital, reclassifying public patients to private status. Then, locally in the Hunter region, there is the John Hunter Hospital, reclassifying public day-only patients for gastroscopies and colonoscopies to private outpatients, and billing Medicare. It is pretty difficult to understand how Dr Refshauge can claim to be short-changed by the Commonwealth when it appears as though cost shifting already funded under the current Medicare agreements back to the Commonwealth is endemic in the New South Wales health system.

This issue is not a game; it is not about kicking the political football of health care funding around the park just for the hell of it. In fact, we should not be playing this game at all. Not only are the people of NSW—including, specifically, the people of the Hunter—quite frankly, fed up and mentally exhausted, having little idea as to what the belligerent states or Commonwealth are really on about over all this debate, but so are the people of Australia. Millions are being jumbled with billions; politicians, unsurprisingly, are taking opposite ends of an argument to, presumably, suit their own ends and their own political needs.

But I do have to say this: if the likes of Bob Carr and Andrew Refshauge want to make a significant contribution to the health care debate, they need to do a few things. Firstly, they have to sign the latest Australian health care agreement; secondly, get their own financial act in order to sustain their promises on health care; and, thirdly, if they want to make a contribution in the area of private health insurance, let us go about it collectively and in an orderly fashion in the right way.

I am a big supporter of private health insurance. We need private health insurance. Indeed, the time may soon come where we need to sit down and have a good hard look at prospects for its possible tax deductibility, even an assessment of the continued effectiveness of community rating or even gap insurance. But if and when that time comes, we need to do it in the right way and at the right time. In conclusion, I seek leave to table this graph: `Growth in own source recurrent hospital expenditure—Commonwealth and all states'.

Leave granted.

The graph read as follows—