Senator HUTCHINS (2:43 PM) —My question is addressed to Senator Ian Campbell, representing the Minister for Health and Ageing. Since the HIC introduced an emergency $6.9 million fund to bribe software companies to include HIC Online in their practice software, can the minister advise how many general practices have signed up and how much the government has spent on implementing this technology? As well, how much more will the government have to spend before the HIC Online plan becomes viable?

Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads) —The government is committed to ensuring that patients receive their Medicare rebates efficiently, effectively and in the shortest time possible. This government has been committed to delivering government services online ever since the Prime Minister of Australia made that commitment—I think it was in about 1997. To answer Senator Hutchins's specific question about the number of doctors who have become part of the HIC Online project, we have in fact already got over 100 general practices who are signed up. Clearly, if we went down the path of the proposals that were discussed by the minister over the weekend then we would like to see every general practice in Australia online and able to provide patients with quick, efficient service and, obviously, ready access to their rebates in real time through that process.

I would have thought the Australian Labor Party would welcome such an approach, to ensure that patients do not have to fill in forms, find an envelope and stick on a stamp, or go and wait outside a Medicare office or join a queue there. We would think, quite frankly, that it is in Australia's interests and in the interests of all its citizens to ensure that they have access to the very best benefits of modern technology and that they can access their government services through that technology. This is a forward-looking proposal by the Minister for Health and Ageing to ensure that that is available to the many millions of Australians who benefit from the Medicare program in any one year in Australia.

Senator HUTCHINS —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister confirm that attempts by the HIC to roll out HIC Online have been hampered by ongoing disputes with medical software providers? Can the minister provide an assurance that all major providers of practice software are now on board with HIC Online, or will the government's new fall-back position for electronic claiming fall in a heap because no-one actually has access to it?

Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads) —Clearly the questions committee in the Australian Labor Party have chosen Senator Hutchins to ask this question because he does have a serious interest in helping to deliver services online. Whenever you seek to deliver a new service online, you always get software companies trying to use their proprietary powers to try and capture control of that marketplace. The Australian government has always delivered its online programs in such a way as to ensure that any software company can deliver those in an open environment—I think that is the terminology, Senator Alston—and, as I understand it, those turf battles between software companies have been resolved. It is in the interests of software suppliers around the world to get on board this project. It is a world-leading project to see health services and health benefits from the Medicare program delivered online to patients, to their benefit, which will strengthen Medicare and make it fairer.