Mr FILING (12:51 PM) —We saw recently the extraordinary spectacle of the state premiers, most of whom come from the coalition parties, walking out at the Premiers Conference following their obvious belief that they were getting nowhere with the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) in negotiating what they consider to be a satisfactory regime for the provision of health care facilities in the state infrastructures.

I might add that I have issued an enormous number of press releases in relation to health problems in my own electorate, particularly concerning the northern suburbs, the new developing areas. I have often come across the situation where I have had the state minister blaming Canberra—he says that Canberra is not giving him an adequate amount of money—and when I ask the Prime Minister he will say, `There is no problem. In fact, Western Australia is doing very well out of its arrangements with the Commonwealth.' It is an interesting situation because whenever I have tried to raise these issues on behalf of my constituents, as I am obliged to do as their representative, I have found that there is duck shoving between the two levels of government. That is very unfortunate, given the problems we have.

My electorate is in a key location in the city of Perth. It spans a coastal development corridor for expansion of the city northwards and it is experiencing a growth rate of around 24 per cent per annum in some places. People are drawn to the area by the opportunity to build or buy new homes, and raise families, and they can look forward to a relatively high standard of living. However, their dreams are beginning to unravel as the state government finds it increasingly difficult to provide from its own revenue sources the necessary range of services to foster and support this growth.

This is something I have spoken on a number of occasions—the vertical fiscal imbalance in the Commonwealth-state fiscal arrangements—and it is something that the incoming coalition government promised to address. Certainly, when I was a member of the Liberal Party I was told it was going to be addressed when we got into government. Now that I am an Independent member I have found that no change has been made and that it is not even mooted to be discussed by the Treasurer (Mr Costello) as part of taxation reform measures.

Mr Nairn —Yes, it is.

Mr FILING —No, it is not. Essential services in this region are reaching a crisis point. Health care, in particular, is an area which cannot be ignored. Let me make a list of some of the problems. There is a lack of out of hours health care. Emergencies are being transferred to the city, which adds an extra 20 minutes travel and puts people at greater risk. There is a lack of beds for care, and people are being sent home in an inappropriate state of health to make way for other patients.

I had a particular case of a frail, elderly patient who was sent back to one of my local retirement estates with tubes still attached to her. This is an extraordinary situation. No out of hours medical care was available at that particular facility. When I went to the state minister and complained about that I was told by him there was nothing he could do and he suggested I negotiate with local medical practitioners to see if any of them would provide the service.

There are ambulance problems faced by seriously ill people. There is a lack of locum services, and inadequate support for or access to mental health services in my area. The state promised to improve the situation based on the planned hospital at Joondalup, but that has been dogged by problems, especially revenue shortages. The most recent problem, as recently as last week, was the announcement by the hospital chief executive at Joondalup, Ian MacDonald, that all elective surgery was cancelled from 6 April to 1 May because of underfunding by the state government.

I cannot express enough disgust at this particular decision. We always know that elective surgery is one of those definitions which is very nebulous. It makes it extraordinarily difficult for my constituents, in particular, considering that this hospital is a privatised hospital. One of the things that I tried to achieve, when the matter was originally being planned—and as a consequence of some of the shortfalls in its operations—was to have a local board of management appointed with true provision for accountability. Unfortunately, they chose instead to have an advisory board, which means not much at all, and the situation is that there is no direct accountability for the local community other than via their local state members, who presumably toe the party line and say nothing if they are put on the spot by their respective parties.

In conclusion, we have a situation which is unacceptable. The health care scenario in my electorate is substandard and needs to be radically addressed. It needs to be urgently sorted out. I might add that, when my constituents saw the state premiers walking out on the Prime Minister—taking their cricket bats and going home—at the Premiers Conference and they saw the Prime Minister stonewalling for his own particular reasons, I am sure they, like many other people in this country, wondered how and why our system of governance had got into this state, and they scratched their heads and thought, `Well, if this is the way government is going under our two-party system, there also need to be changes to that'. (Time expired)