Mr HAYES (9:39 AM) —Last week the Prime Minister announced the biggest change to Australia’s health and hospitals system since the introduction of Medicare. This announcement was certainly welcome in my electorate, where local people had been saying for some time that the Australian government needed to take some responsibility for health and hospitals in our community and that they required real change. We have heard the concerns and now we are acting on those and attempting to deliver a better, more coordinated and targeted health system. We are trying to end the bickering between levels of government.

It is important across south-west Sydney to know precisely what the Rudd government’s national health and hospital network will mean for local hospital and health services. The simple question in this situation must always be: do people want a better health system? It is simple. We know that no hospital system and no health system is ever going to deliver a perfect result all the time, but as a nation we can do better. Doctors and nurses in my local community are saying to me that they want us to provide funding certainty into the future so they can get on and do their job in delivering better health outcomes for their local communities. The important thing to remember is that this plan will be nationally funded, meaning that more money will be available to meet rising health costs. Significantly, and very importantly, services will be locally run. We will empower local doctors and nurses with local expertise to make important decisions about local health initiatives. They will become more efficient and operate with less waste, and that will help to free up the resources to deliver more services and beds.

Doctors and nurses are backing these reforms. The Australian Nursing Federation and the AMA are publicly supporting the Prime Minister for taking responsibility for major health reform in this country. I note with some interest that both my local newspapers, the Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser and the Macarthur Chronicle, are reporting that local doctors have broadly supported the federal government’s proposed takeover of hospitals. I also note the comments of the state MP for Macquarie Fields and local paediatrician, Dr Andrew McDonald. He said:

This was also supported by the New South Wales pre-eminent paediatrician, Dr Michael Freelander. Professor Brad Frankum from the University of Western Sydney medical school said:

This was certainly borne out by the most recent Nielsen poll, which showed 79 per cent of voters were backing this system, whereas in New South Wales it was even stronger at 85 per cent. We are determined to take real action and make real changes to the hospital system for the better of all Australians. (Time expired)