❓ Question concerns the latest developments from the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting regarding health, specifically how it impacts Western Australia. The Minister's answer details WA's position on proposed national health agreements, highlighting areas of support and disagreement.
AnsweredQoN 131Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
HEALTH — COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENTS MEETING
I refer to the leading role that our Premier is playing on the national stage in trying to ensure — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES
I refer to the leading role that our Premier is playing on the national stage in trying to ensure — Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr A.P. JACOB : — a better health system for Western Australia and to protect the state’s interests. Western Australia’s government is leading the nation in health with initiatives such as the four-hour rule and the Friend in Need—Emergency scheme. As the discussions are still underway, can the minister please inform the house of the latest developments of the Council of Australian Governments meeting? Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES replied: I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I thank the member for the question. It is true that the Premier is at the Council of Australian Governments meeting protecting the best interests of Western Australia in his arguments with the commonwealth. Opposition members all laughed when the member for Ocean Reef made his comments, but other Labor Premiers—the mates of members opposite—have rolled over and given away their states’ benefits related to the goods and services tax arrangements. I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I was going to apprise this house of some of the terms of the proposed national agreement and tell the house where Western Australia stands on them. This state supports large parts of the proposal. It was cobbled together as a package and we received the details of it only over the last two weeks. A huge amount of effort has been expended by our staff in dealing with the commonwealth and nutting out some of those issues. It has been a very interesting few weeks, I have to say, particularly in the last weeks, with the Premier being away and being part of the national hook-ups with Premiers from other states. We have heard some extremely strong opposition to some components of the deal, but those people who opposed the deal have now rolled over and agreed to go along with the commonwealth’s proposal. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I will tell members opposite in a second but they know who they are; they do not need me to tell them. The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The components of the package that we do support are these. The first is the change to activity-based funding. That is something that we had already agreed to, it is something that is being done in South Australia and Victoria in particular, and it is something that we believe will lead to the best outcomes for patients in this state. That is something, therefore, that we support as part of the package. The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The second major component of the package was a change to local area health networks—or boards—in small areas. The state would need to come to agreement with those in a contract, and the networks would be directly funded by this pooling of funding by the commonwealth. The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The Labor Party in its term in government got rid of every medical board in this state—every single one of them. We have proposed to bring some of them back. We do not support the model of multiple boards that has been put forward by the commonwealth, but we do support some, particularly two to three in the metropolitan area and one or two in country regions. In part of the negotiations the commonwealth had agreed to our proposal. The commonwealth has therefore changed its view on the way the health system will be managed. It has also changed its view on the way it will be funded, in the sense that the commonwealth’s proposal was that it would all be funded directly from the commonwealth to the local area networks and that the state government would have responsibility only for policy settings and then entering into contracts with those local area networks. That is something that the former government totally changed—and for the better. As part of the Reid review, the former Minister for Health changed the system to include the North Metropolitan Area Health Service, the South Metropolitan Area Health Service and the statewide WA Country Health Service, which provide a whole-of-government role for managing health services in the state. We think that is a good model. We do want to bring back some boards but we want them managed in a way in which they will still take direction from the government and the minister of the day for better managing our health system in this state. We therefore do support those components. Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Part of the other deal was the aged-care package. Sadly, the aged-care package put forward by the commonwealth is seriously deficient. All the aged-care organisations and all the other Premiers throughout the nation are saying that that package is inadequate. The commonwealth has accepted the concerns put forward by the states and is working to find an alternative package that will better address the concerns of all the states. We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
We have therefore, through significant negotiation over the past two weeks, particularly over the past 48 hours, come to agreement on many issues relating to that healthcare package. We are now of the view that that package, plus the increased funding that the commonwealth is intending to provide, will be in the best interests of Western Australia and that it will provide better health services for the state. I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I must say that the earlier commitments on funding from the commonwealth were extremely poor in that the amount we had allocated to the out years was significant: $1.6 billion from 2014 to 2020. In the short term the increased funding committed to this state was $307 million. That is about $70-odd million a year in additional funding, which is less than one week’s expenditure in the health budget. Our current expenditure is in the order of $100 million a week. The commonwealth offered an additional package of $76 million, but all the states said that the offer was not good enough and that it had to be greater, and I understand that that has been negotiated. The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The severe failing of this package is that it does not concentrate just on health services. All of the package that includes health services we accept, agree with and can support. However, the critical method for funding this package from the commonwealth was to take our goods and services tax revenue under the intergovernmental agreement, put it in a pool with its own money and then call it its own money. The commonwealth would not then regard it as state and commonwealth money together; it would regard it as commonwealth money. It would say that it was now providing 60 per cent of the money, it will call the shots and the states will do it this way and that way. In our link-up with the Premiers, the New South Wales and Victorian governments were both of the view that that was not acceptable. They were happy to commit that amount of money to a pool, but the pool needed to be managed in a transparent way by the states and not by the commonwealth and that they would not break the intergovernmental agreement. That agreement was regarded by the current Prime Minister, who has long opposed the GST relationship with the states, as a method by which the commonwealth could have control of that money. He wants to break that agreement. He wants to get that money—which comes from all Western Australians, and which should be for all Western Australians—and he wants to keep it as his own and call it his own. We will not be a part of that. We have refused to be a part of that. I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
I have the sad task of telling members that, today, all of the Labor states have rolled over. There was already a collection of them, lying on their backs and kicking their feet in the air while their tummies were being tickled. But two states were hanging out. Those two states have today capitulated and have agreed to that component of the agreement. Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Can I say that what is happening now is that Mr Rudd had come out and said, “Hallelujah! An agreement has been reached. But we will deal with Western Australia later.” Well, we will not as a government resile from the fact that — Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr E.S. Ripper : This says that a deal has been done between WA and the commonwealth! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I know it does. But that does not come from us. I hope the Leader of the Opposition will realise that. That comes from the federal Labor government. I can tell the Leader of the Opposition, straight from the Premier’s mouth, that no deal has been done. An agreement has been reached on the health package, but no deal has been done on the GST arrangements. My understanding—correct me if I am wrong—is that the Leader of the Opposition does not, and his side of government does not, agree with the breaking of the intergovernmental agreement either, or with the access to Western Australian taxpayers’ funds. Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr R.H. Cook : But that is what it says! Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I know that is what it says. I have read it, the same as the member has read it. But I can assure the member that that is not the case. That is the Prime Minister’s press release. We will be putting out a press release that is somewhat different. Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr R.H. Cook : So are you saying that the Prime Minister is a liar? Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : I am saying that the Prime Minister is obviously distorting the truth. Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : Is that good enough for members opposite? He is distorting the truth. I can tell members opposite that no deal has been done. Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Several members interjected. The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
The SPEAKER : Order, members! Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : The Premier was in the unusual position of being at a press conference at which the Prime Minister was announcing one thing, when he knew that the real story was something different. What will happen now is that presumably, from what has been said in that press release, the Rudd government will come to the Western Australian government to try to broker some alternate deal. I can tell members opposite that we will not agree to the breaking of the IGA. Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Mr E.S. Ripper : The IGA? Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
Dr K.D. HAMES : The intergovernmental agreement. If that means that the deal falls through, and if that means that there needs to be a referendum on the issue, well, we say, “Bring it on!”
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