• Joe Kelly
• From: The Australian 
• April 16, 2010 10:30AM

TONY Abbott has questioned the point of the education funding review flagged by Julia Gillard and claimed the government would cut funding for private schools if re-elected.


The Australian reported this morning that the Education Minister told the Sydney Institute she would launch a review into education funding at the end of the month.

She also guaranteed schools would maintain their funding until 2012 and said there was no suggestion that non-government schools would lose funding.

But Mr Abbott has today questioned the purpose of the review if it simply recommended more money for schools.

“What's the point of having an inquiry if it's just more money for everyone?” Mr Abbott asked on the Today program on the Nine network. “Where's the fiscal responsibility in that?”

Mr Abbott pointed to the Rudd government's broken promise not to means test the private health insurance rebate before the 2007 election as evidence it would seek to strip funding from private schools.

“You just can't trust these people,” he said.

“They don't like private education. They will, after the election, if they're re-elected as sure as night follows day, they will try to cut private schools funding.”

But Ms Gillard said she was prepared to go to fight the next election on the issue of trust on school funding.

“I'm happy to fight the next election on the issue of trust,” she said. “School funding, we have almost doubled the amount of money going into schools.”

In a speech to the Sydney Institute last night Ms Gillard said her plan was to use information gathered through the My School website to ensure all schools were adequately funded.

There is widespread criticism the existing model favours elite schools over public schools.

“We have given a funding maintenance guarantee. I gave it last night. This is not about taking money of schools,” Ms Gillard said this morning. “The school funding review that I opened up last night is about all schools. We currently have a system where we don't look across at all schools and say `how are they being funded?' I want to do that, I want to get it right for every child and every school.”

The government has promised to review schools funding before 2013 when the current Howard government model expires.
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Hope private insurance rebate will not greatly impact the funds for private schools

Wealth not good for Hornsby’s health

16 Apr 10 @ 10:25am by Jessica Clement

HORNSBY Hospital’s buildings and facilities have been allowed to fall gradually into disrepair partly because of the perceived wealth of residents in Sydney’s north.

In light of the NSW Planning department’s approval of a $780 million redevelopment of Sydney Adventist Hospital, the Advocate posed a question in its editorial last week: has our much-maligned public facility been a casualty of a boom in the private health industry across the area?

Hornsby’s clinical director of surgery Pip Middleton said demographics and an influx of private health providers over several decades had indeed conspired to deny Hornsby much-needed redevelopment.

“I have no doubt the demographers at NSW Health look at the north of Sydney, see a whole supply of
private health operators and decide the need for public facilities is possibly not as high as other areas,” Dr Middleton said.

“The funding per bed in areas like western Sydney is about 10 times higher than in the north.

“That’s why places like Royal North Shore, Manly, Mona Vale, and of course Hornsby (hospitals), have been left to decay without a major injection of funding.”

Sydney Adventist Hospital’s chief, Leon Clark, agreed Hornsby Hospital had been let down due to demographics and perceptions of the area, but was in no doubt that it “would eventually have its day”.

“I think it’s only a matter of time for them, but the problem is the decisions for the public system are made at the whim of the government of the day,” he said.

“The strength of private hospitals depends on how many people choose to take up private health insurance.

“There is undoubtedly a need for both a strong public and private system in this area.”

Dr Middleton said Hornsby Hospital patients were leaking to the Adventist Hospital because resources were not up to scratch.

“If we can actually provide standards that are in keeping with what patients can accept in a modern hospital system then that would not happen,” he said.

A NSW Health spokesman said “many factors” were considered by the department when making any decisions on Hornsby Hospital, “including the availability and makeup of public and private health services in the area”.
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I hope Hornsby Hospital will able to provide more efficient service.

Julia Gillard Television Interview - Today Show

Friday, 16 April 2010 14:20

ISSUES: Asylum seekers; BER; Health and Hospital Reform; AEU boycott of NAPLAN testing; School Funding Review; President Obama’s visit to Australia
 
LISA WILKINSON: As we welcome back to the studio Julia Gillard.

JULIA GILLARD: Hello.

LISA WILKINSON: Good morning to you, Julia and to you, Tony Abbott.

TONY ABBOTT: Morning, Lisa.

LISA WILKINSON: What do you reckon, Tony? Good likeness there?

TONY ABBOTT: Look, I was amused and I think the Prime Minister has lots of paranoid thoughts and so yes I found it quite lifelike in that sense.

LISA WILKINSON: Julia?

JULIA GILLARD: Just don’t take your jacket and shirt and tie off to try and prove the likeness. We don’t want that to happen, not on morning TV.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Tony, in all seriousness, congratulations on the Pollie Pedal again, lots of money raised, big ride, Sydney to Melbourne, but even your growing number of fans would like you to have spent some time out there formulating policy. Let’s talk about for instance immigration, boat people situation which is developing, are you suggesting that we should go back to the Pacific Solution?

TONY ABBOTT: Well I’m suggesting that the Government was wrong to have dumped the Howard Government’s policies and certainly what we need immediately is a temporary protection visa because that would deny the people smugglers a product to sell. But, Cameron, look, whether it be hospital policy, whether it be Julia’s school rip-off policy, whether it be boat people, I was available everyday to talk about these issues as well as to meet with ordinary people on the route and some of the people who I met with on my trip were very concerned about Julia’s school hall rip-off policy and they were white-hot with anger in fact about just how much money had been wasted.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: But when are we going to see your policy written in paper so we can scrutinise it and catch you on the bike again sometime?

TONY ABBOTT: Well I think I’m being scrutinised all the time, Cameron.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: But we don’t know what you stand for, Tony.

TONY ABBOTT: I think you do clearly know what I stand for.

LISA WILKINSON: But when are we going to see some policy, Tony?

TONY ABBOTT: Well on boats for instance we will have temporary protection visas. We will talk behind the scenes rather than through megaphones to countries like Indonesia. We won’t be bringing asylum seekers onshore to be processed and look, we will be prepared if necessary and if safe, to turn boats around so you know where we stand on these issues. We won’t waste money on Julia Gillard’s school halls and the other thing is we won’t make false promises to private schools about maintaining their funding as Julia did last night which echoed the false promise they made about private health insurance before the election.

LISA WILKINSON: OK, well there are quite a few issues around, let’s start with health. It is shaping up as the big issue this weekend, Julia. John Brumby, Victorian Premier saying no way, Kristina Keneally it appears is going to say no as well unless a miracle happens you’ve got this meeting on Monday, this health plan is just not going to get up.

JULIA GILLARD: Well there is the big meeting on Monday of the Prime Minister and the Premiers and the Prime Minister is absolutely to determined to deliver health reform.

LISA WILKINSON: But he can’t do that without New South Wales and Victoria.

JULIA GILLARD: Well I think the phones will be running hot over the weekend because he is absolutely determined. Now what he’s always said and what the Government has said is if we can’t get this done at COAG then we will take it to the people.
But we’re focused on getting an agreement. People have waited too long for health reform. We want to deliver it on Monday. We’re working overtime, certainly the Prime Minister’s working overtime to drive it towards a deal on Monday.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Talk about the BER, just briefly because finally you’ve announced an inquiry, took a long time, Julia. I mean, you denied that there was an issue for a long, long time. Now you’ve got the teachers piling up on you. Do you really think, are you sticking by your assertion that parents should step in and take their roles?

JULIA GILLARD: On Building the Education Revolution, this is a program that’s rolling out round the country. I’ve been to five schools myself this week, projects – everybody’s delighted with them.
What I announced was an Implementation Taskforce because I want to make sure every dollar spent gets the maximum value for schools and it’s been headed up by a major Australian businessman, Mr Brad Orgill, because he’ll bring that commercial expertise. So I think that was the right thing to do, building that level of insurance.
On the national testing, it’s the right thing for us to have national testing of kids and have the next version of My School and we will deliver that and all the state education ministers yesterday stood with me and said we’re determined to make sure the national testing goes ahead.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Are you determined to ignore the teacher’s wishes on this?

JULIA GILLARD: Well it’s the Australian Education Union executive that has issued this call for a boycott and I’m asking them to reconsider to not put teachers and parents in this position. National testing gives you a report card about your own child, it also feeds into My School and it feeds into teachers’ teaching plans because they know where a kid’s starting and what more needs to be done to get them to read and write and do maths the way we want them to.

TONY ABBOTT: Just on the school hall rip-off, have you received the Auditor General’s draft report yet, Julia?

JULIA GILLARD: Well as you would know, Tony, under the Audit Act, the law of this country….

TONY ABBOTT: I’m asking you a straight question. Have you received the draft report?

JULIA GILLARD: Yes, and I’m explaining to you the laws of the nation, Tony, so maybe you want to look them up at some point. But under the Audit Act, the laws of the nation, every stage of an audit is confidential and I’m simply not legally able to answer that question.

TONY ABBOTT: But have you received the draft report? Well no you can say whether you’ve received the draft report.

JULIA GILLARD: As you well know as a minister…

TONY ABBOTT: Well no, you can say whether you’ve received the draft report.

JULIA GILLARD: No, Tony, that’s not true.

TONY ABBOTT: Because I think your inquiry…

JULIA GILLARD: Tony, that is not true, it’s all a confidential process.

TONY ABBOTT: Your inquiry is designed to whitewash a very critical Auditor General’s report.

JULIA GILLARD: Tony, that’s an assertion that you would make and of course you would for political advantage.

LISA WILKINSON: Julia, Tony’s point is fair, though. The announcement of the inquiry after week after week after week, the Australian, Ray Hadley, we here on the Today Show, we’ve been asking you to focus on this and understand there are a lot of people who feel there are rip-offs going on, you haven’t acted on it. This week you did, it was around about the time that everybody thought the Auditor-General’s report was going to land in your hands.

JULIA GILLARD: Well everything to do with the audit report is legally confidential so I’m not at liberty to talk about that.

LISA WILKINSON: Of course.

JULIA GILLARD: But I can talk about…

TONY ABBOTT: I’m not asking for the detail of the report. Have you received it?

JULIA GILLARD: I can talk about the timing. Building the Education Revolution had auditing and monitoring at every level when we first announced it. I’ve been saying for some time if I became persuaded we needed to do more, then we would. There were some value for money examples I was concerned about. That’s why I announced the Implementation Taskforce this week because I also wanted to brief the ministers of education from around the country on it and we met yesterday.
So that’s why we put it in place this week, but we’ve got to remember with Building the Education Revolution, yep, there’s been some criticism and I’ll take that on the chin but I would rather be out there investing in schools and supporting jobs…

TONY ABBOTT: Doesn’t justify wasting money, Julia.

JULIA GILLARD: …than doing what Tony has urged which is he voted against this program, not one cent into any school with all of the job losses that that would have implied and if he’s elected, he’ll stop it.

TONY ABBOTT: We didn’t need to waste money, Julia.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: I think we’ve covered that, Tony.

JULIA GILLARD: You’re going to stop it, though, if you’re elected. You’ve been very clear about that.

TONY ABBOTT: We won’t waste money, we won’t waste money the way you have.

JULIA GILLARD: Because you’ll stop the whole program. There’ll be no more school building.

TONY ABBOTT: We’ll do it the way we did it under the Howard Government to the investing in our schools program which parent communities around the country rejoiced in. There were no rip-offs there.

LISA WILKINSON: I think people want more accountability, Julia.

JULIA GILLARD: Your commitment is to suspend this program and your economic spokespeople are talking about stopping it so that there would be no more investment in schools. You can’t walk away from that.

TONY ABBOTT: We would do it the way we did it under the Howard Government.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Let’s move on because you did flag an overhaul of funding for schools last night in a speech.

JULIA GILLARD: Yes.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: You can understand that the Australian public may have a degree of trepidation about how you’re going to handle this.

JULIA GILLARD: Well I don’t see why, when our track record, look at the scoreboard – we’re a Government that has almost doubled the amount of money that the national government invests in schools. I think that’s a pretty good track record.

LISA WILKINSON: Who’s going to get more and who’s going to get less before we go to Tony?

JULIA GILLARD: We have given a funding maintenance guarantee. I gave it last night. This is not about taking money off schools and your question is only relevant if you assume somehow this is a zero sum game; I don’t and the school funding review that I opened up last night is about all schools. We currently have a system where we don’t look across at all schools and say how are they being funded. I want to do that, I want to get it right for every child in every school.

LISA WILKINSON: Tony?

TONY ABBOTT: What’s the point of having an inquiry if it’s just more money for everyone. If it is of course more money for everyone, where’s the fiscal responsibility in that? But you just can’t trust these people, Lisa. I mean, before the last election Julia put her hand on her heart repeatedly and said we will not means test the private health insurance rebate, we like private health insurance – wrong, they hated private health insurance, they’re now trying to means test it. They don’t like private education, they will, after the election if they’re re-elected, as sure as night follows day, they will try to cut private school funding.

JULIA GILLARD: Tony, it’s pretty hard to explain then, why the representatives of private schools, the Independent Schools Association welcomed this funding review which they did yesterday and I’m happy to fight the next election on the question of trust about school funding. Who do you trust? The Government that’s almost doubled the amount of money going into school education….

TONY ABBOTT: The Government which has repeatedly broken its commitments.

JULIA GILLARD: ….or your government which neglected schools for 12 years.

LISA WILKINSON: Wasn’t that John Howard’s line, Julia?

JULIA GILLARD: Well exactly, I’m happy to fight the next election on the question of trust. School funding; we have almost doubled the amount…

TONY ABBOTT: They couldn’t trust you on private health insurance.

JULIA GILLARD: ….of money going into schools.

TONY ABBOTT: But they couldn’t trust you on private health insurance. Why should they trust you on private schools?

JULIA GILLARD: Well scoreboard, actual action, 12 years of neglect

TONY ABBOTT: But they couldn’t trust you, you lied.

JULIA GILLARD: We came to Government and we are investing in schools

TONY ABBOTT: …about private health. Why aren’t you lying now about private schools?

JULIA GILLARD: at record rates and we’ve been opposed by you every step of the way, every dollar of investment.

LISA WILKINSON: OK, I think we’ve done that.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Just moving on again, Barrack Obama of course everyone’s looking forward to his visit Down Under. I’m sure you are too, Julia.

JULIA GILLARD: Yes, coming here to Sydney as well so that’s good.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Yes, he appeared on the 7:30 Report, started quoting from Spiderman we believe; take a look.

BARRACK OBAMA: With great power comes great responsibility.

SPIDERMAN: With great power comes great responsibility. This is my gift, my curse. Who am I? I’m Spiderman.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Spiderman fans will know that Peter Parker was told those immortal words by Ben Parker, his uncle, so everyone needs a mentor.

LISA WILKINSON: We should apologise to John-Jacques Rousseau who actually originally said that line first.

JULIA GILLARD: Well I don’t understand President Obama’s going to be here in a Spiderman suit, that’s not my understanding.

LISA WILKINSON: He was very complimentary about the Prime Minister last night.

JULIA GILLARD: Well he was and I think they’ve got a really strong rapport and that’s, you know, great for relations between our two countries. Whatever the cycle of politics, whoever’s in or out on both sides, here in Australia or in the States, we’ve got a great relationship but it’s good to see such a strong rapport.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Will you ever get to shoot hoops with him?

TONY ABBOTT: I’m a pretty lousy basketball player but you’re right, Julia’s right. I mean, American presidents tend to say nice things about Australian prime ministers. It was said about a former prime minister by a former president and it is good that it’s a strong relationship and let’s hope that we can build on that strength.

JULIA GILLARD: Tony, it pays to say nice things back and the Liberal Party hasn’t always said nice things about President Obama but that’ll be a lesson I think.

LISA WILKINSON: Come on, you two like coming in here every Friday, we know  you do. You can’t hide it anymore.

JULIA GILLARD: We like seeing you two.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: You go and share a mintie in the green room now I’m sure.

LISA WILKINSON: Thanks Tony, thanks Julia.

CAMERON WILLIAMS: Thanks very much.
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A bit long interview if you ask me, but this interview can give us more info when it comes to health and hospital reform with other issues.

Rudd has the mandate but not the perfect plan

April 18, 2010

THE great health debate of 2010 is a dud. We should be talking about the shape of our future health system and what we're prepared to pay for it. Instead, the battle between Kevin Rudd and John Brumby over who funds hospitals - an important but relatively small part of the picture - has left us feeling like tennis spectators watching a tedious baseline rally.

But in the pages of medical journals and health blogs, a debate of sorts is going on. Australia's leading health brains have now published their critiques. And their verdict? A handful applaud the PM for a step in the right direction. Most, though, criticise the plan and have some sympathy for Brumby's view.

Many agree with Brumby that the new funding model is simply a rebadging of taxpayer funds. Rudd wants to claw back 30 per cent of the state's GST revenue, drop their hospital contribution from 60 per cent to 40 per cent, and then channel those GST funds into the system.

Most importantly, there is no clear plan of how the government intends to ''shoulder the burden'' of the rising future hospitals bill. Rudd makes this promise, yet, as the experts point out, Canberra has for a decade squibbed on its half of the hospital funding agreement. Where will the extra money come from? ''There is nothing in the plan,'' wrote one of the Medibank and Medicare architects, John Deeble, ''that would … inject any extra money into public hospitals over the next 10 years.''

And, according to the gurus, the blame game will continue. The new funding split is 60-40, but under Rudd's plan, responsibility (read, blame) is split three ways: Canberra looks after the majority of funding, local networks run the hospitals, and the states will still have, as Rudd puts it, ''skin in the game'' - they are responsible for management and building new hospitals.

The states will still have to pay billions to maintain hospitals and large parts of the bureaucracy, yet for what?

There appears to be no political incentive for them to run things well and be accountable. Rudd wants to take the blame - and also the credit - so it will be the Commonwealth driving policy, not premiers and state health ministers.

While Rudd's plan to tackle diabetes was well received, the experts were confounded by the absence of a mental health plan (on Thursday, Health Minister Nicola Roxon indicated Canberra would take on community mental health, but a comprehensive plan remains missing). Plans for dental care and chronic disease generally were also absent.

In announcing his diabetes plan, Rudd said that each year Australian hospitals see 237,000 potentially preventable admissions for diabetes complications. But University of Sydney mental health expert Sebastian Rosenberg said the beds could also be freed up by better community-based mental health care. The same statistics show 175,000 annual hospital admissions for mental illness. And the stay is longer: 14.8 days per episode versus 4.8 days for diabetes. Rosenberg pointed to an unpublished 2006 survey that found 44 per cent of public mental health beds were occupied by patients who just needed better care in other settings.

In a worrying sign early last month, Stephen Duckett, a former secretary of the federal Health Department, expressed concerns about Canberra's ability to make policy, particularly around price-setting, for hospitals.

Duckett said it would be ''extraordinarily difficult'' to apply a national model of funding for each operation or task a hospital performs. ''The Commonwealth has not demonstrated it has the skill to do it,'' Duckett said.
But perhaps the biggest problem with Rudd's health reform is that it is obsessed with hospitals. Experts agree that improving the service offered by doctors, counsellors or physios, and preventing disease, is much more important than who funds the hospital system. As former senior bureaucrat John Menadue says, the world's best health systems are grounded in primary care. Yet it was only last week, almost as an afterthought, that Rudd released the detail on his primary healthcare plan.

It's not all grim for Rudd, however. Professor Stephen Leeder, director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy, thinks his reforms will be tough and ''revolutionary'' and will take a decade to implement, but many parts (such as introducing national standards) make sense. Menadue says the reforms deserve support, but are missing some big cost-cutting measures such as tackling avoidable mistakes and fixing the taxpayer subsidy to private health insurance.

Brumby should be applauded for being an advocate for Victorians, and his criticism is echoed by a majority of expert opinion. But these experts do not necessarily support Brumby's Putting Patients First plan - few would back status quo arrangements that leave hospitals without clear and secure funding in the future.

Brumby must also acknowledge that Rudd has a clear mandate for reform. When state and federal leaders meet tomorrow, patients would be best served with a mixed remedy: the good parts of both plans. And maybe then we can have a proper debate.

Melissa Fyfe is The Sunday Age's state politics reporter. twitter.com/melfyfe

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Hope this debate will end-up in a more efficient plan especially for the private health insurance.

Maitland Private Hospital expanding to meet needs

BY MATTHEW KELLY

09 Apr, 2010 04:00 AM

 
THE owners of Maitland Private Hospital have foreshadowed further expansion of the hospital to cater for surging population growth in the Lower Hunter.

Health Care chief operating officer Steve Atkins said the recently approved $5.5 million redevelopment was designed to meet demand.

"We know that a lot of people from Maitland, Singleton and Cessnock are travelling to Newcastle and Sydney for health care," he said.

"This expansion is really oriented towards that demand, which is going elsewhere, as opposed to future population growth."

Maitland has been the fastest growing inland centre of NSW for almost a decade.

Stage one of the redevelopment, which recently received development application approval will take the hospital's total bed capacity to 84.

A third operating theatre opened last year.

The centre opened in 2002 and Mr Atkins said the hospital had inbuilt capacity for further expansion in response to population growth.

"We expect with the extra beds coming online, which is a combination of surgery, rehabilitation and medical, that we will be able to commission that fourth theatre at some stage in the future," Mr Atkins said.

The growth in private health sector comes despite the Maitland area having a lower than average number of people with private health insurance, 41.2 per cent, compared with 52.4 per cent for the Hunter.

Mr Atkins said the private hospital's growth would complement services provided in the public sector.

Maitland Hospital has about 200 beds and provides services ranging from emergency care, surgery, maternity and community health services across the Lower Hunter.
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All these improvement in Maitland Private Hospitals will greatly helps the population growth problem.

A step forward for care in U.S.

Posted: Tuesday, April 6, 2010 12:00 am

Dear editor, I’m an American who’s spent her college years and beyond living in Sydney, Australia. I come home every year or so to the Bay Area to check in with the family, and these visits have become bittersweet as we all get older, and I start to really consider where I’ll raise my own family in the not-too-distant future.

Health care, something that never dawned on my idealistic 18-year-old self as I boarded a plane for the other side of the Pacific, has in the past few years become a major downside to returning to the states. As a resident of Australia, I’m on Medicare and choose to pay $60 a month for private insurance on top of that, which helps cover the costs of dental, chiropractic and other additional services. By contrast, my uncle pays $1,300 a month for private health insurance in California, after his employer went under during the financial crisis and he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. And he still has to argue with insurers to pay for his ultrasounds and other tests prescribed by his doctor. If it weren’t for our family all chipping in, he likely would have lost his home by now.

Reading reports of the reactions to reform in America has been surreal: in Australia if they proposed something like President Obama’s plan, it would be rejected by right and left alike as not nearly comprehensive enough!

So congratulations to California’s distinguished representatives, to our president and to our people. We deserve this, and far more.

Lilian McCombs / American Canyon
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There some bad and good side of you being in Sydney and as well an American citizen.