Senator KNOWLES (3:21 PM) —Here we are debating the health issues again and talking about some stunt that was pulled at the weekend. It is interesting. Senator Webber asked a question about this of Senator Patterson and I—admittedly in an unparliamentary fashion—interjected and asked Senator Webber to confirm whether or not she had attended that stunt at the weekend. Her lack of response indicates to me that she did not. If she had attended something she thought was so important as to ask the minister for help about, she would have been the first to accept an interjection and say, `Yes, I did attend.' But clearly Senator Webber did not attend and was prattling on about something she has had no contact with and no information about—no nothing—but saying how wonderful it was. I find that pretty amazing. I cannot talk about a show unless I have seen it, so I go and see it. If Senator Webber thought this was so important, why didn't she go? She then tried to tell everyone else that they should go. That is the squib's way out by saying, `I do not want to go—I do not want to use my weekend—but you should go.' That is absolutely preposterous.

The minister is saying to the states that we have Medicare agreements for the expenditure of public funds and part of that comes from the Commonwealth government. We have to say that over recent years much of the money that has gone from the Commonwealth to the states has gone into the states' Bermuda Triangle, never to be seen or accounted for again. With this agreement the minister has gone to the states and said, `Because money has disappeared with no apparent accountability in previous agreements, for this agreement I want accountability; I want to see how it's going to be spent.' Under the new agreement the states will have to recommit to the Medicare principles, and specifically the availability of free public hospital treatment for all Australians who seek it, and will have to publicly commit to a specified level of funding for each year of the next agreement. Guess what? They will not do it. Why won't the states simply agree to a set amount of increase per year in public funding? They only have to agree to commit to a new financial and performance reporting framework. If you were dinkum, you would not think that that would be too hard. What is wrong with asking the states to agree to a reporting framework and a financial system that is clear and transparent to all who put in the money—that is, the taxpayers? But, no, the states will not do that.

So why should Minister Patterson go off to some frolic at the weekend with a bunch of people who may be well intentioned but who are putting the cart before the horse instead of saying, `Let's look at the way in which this can work once the agreements are signed'? Nothing that happened last weekend is going to change the proposal that is on the table at the moment and to which the states have to agree or not agree.

By not signing and continuing to carry on, the states look set to deprive the hospital system of over $3.6 billion over the next five years. I would say that $3.6 billion amounts to a lot of explaining that they will have to do to their constituents. I will make sure that I do my bit to have it exposed that the states are going to deprive their constituents of $3.6 billion in Commonwealth funding because they want to play politics—just because it is all Labor states against a coalition federal government. That is not acting in the best interests of their constituents, but they do not seem to care about that and never have. This is all about trying to get the Commonwealth government because it is not of their political persuasion. That is naive; it is stupid. It is not in the interests of constituents, and the state governments are the ones who will have to account for it. If they do not want to sign up for a 17 per cent increase over five years, that is their business; but they will be held accountable for it. I look forward to the day when they are held accountable and they all lose office.