E&OE…
Topics: Healthscope’s closure of two private hospitals in Victoria; Company tax cuts
JON FAINE:
How can you not make money out of the provision of private health?
GREG HUNT:
Well, you have both national and local challenges and I think it’s very important to understand this. We have a fantastic balance of public and private health in Australia, but the national challenge is some of the states are harvesting private patients for the public hospitals.
In Victoria, you’ve seen a growth of 140 per cent of private patients in public emergency hospitals, and you’ve seen a growth of 70 per cent of private patients in public elective hospitals.
That does two things. It reduces the capacity of the private sector to support themselves and it also blows out waiting lists for public patients, often those with less income, in public hospitals. So it’s a semi-privatisation of the public hospital system, and I’m encouraging the states to look at what this does to their waiting lists. There’s two to one ratio…
JON FAINE:
Sure, but there’s…
GREG HUNT:
… twenty days for private patients, it’s 42 days for public patients, and that’s in the same public hospitals around the country.
JON FAINE:
I agree, that may be a factor, but a month ago, we reported on redundancies at some of Healthscope’s hospitals, and there’s been a quarter of a million Australians who have dropped out of private health insurance just in the last 12 months because they don’t think it’s good value.
GREG HUNT:
No, that’s not correct. The figures which were published in the last few days show an increase of 46,000 people across Australia. That was a survey which ultimately was proved to be incorrect within 24 hours of having been published when the hard, national data by the regulator was published.
So an additional 46,000 people in private health insurance in the latest figures. But most significantly, there are also local factors and so we know that in the Geelong area, you’ve had the new Epworth Hospital open up which has both- which is both private, but it also has public access to it. And then secondly, St John of God has been performing extremely well and has been increasing its facilities. And so…
JON FAINE:
So you think it’s good? It’s a sign of competition that a private hospital shuts its doors in Geelong? That’s a good thing, is it?
GREG HUNT:
Well no, I’m not saying it’s a good thing that it shuts at all. I think for their staff, it’s deeply concerning, and I’ve spoken with the chair of Healthscope, Paula Dwyer, only this morning to ask that everything possible be done to assist with the support staff, the administrative staff, the nurses and the doctors, and she’s made a commitment that they will work to try to find a place for every staff member, whether it’s within the Healthscope network, within other private networks, which surprised me in a positive way that they were willing to do that or within the public system.
Then at the same time for the patients, what the chair said to me and what Healthscope has said public is these were two local cases where there’s very, very high competition in, as I say, Epworth and St John of God in the Geelong area. You have St Vincent’s Private and Caritas Christi as well as not far away, Epworth Richmond in the Kew area. So that is intense local competition…
JON FAINE:
Okay.
GREG HUNT:
Right across the country, the states have to stop harvesting private patients…
JON FAINE:
They’re under…
GREG HUNT:
…in public hospitals because it blows out the waiting lists.
JON FAINE:
Sure.
GREG HUNT:
It also risks the private hospital system.
JON FAINE:
Well they’re under scrutiny, they’ve got more than 40 hospitals around Australia and they’re at the moment subject to takeover negotiations. So if there’s 40 or more, I think 44, sites around Australia, how come the three , two for closure and one for winding back, are all in Victoria?
Is it to do with the conduct of Victorian public hospitals, particularly, compared to what’s happening elsewhere around the country?
GREG HUNT:
Well, you have in both of those cases, and this is what they’ve said publicly and then what the chair has said to me this morning, they have that intense local competition. In the case of Frankston, I’m very hopeful, that’s a brand new facility only opened a few months ago, that that will build up.
So that’s a start-up, as it were, a new facility. And I think that that’s providing tremendous service locally.
But in Victoria, what you see is 140 per cent growth in the number of private public emergency patients. So in other words, patients who are from private health insurance who are going into the public emergency system and 70 per cent growth of private patients in elective surgery.
So what that means is that it’s blowing out the waiting lists for public patients, and that’s neither fair nor reasonable, so it puts pressure on the whole of the private health system. And I think that it’s something that the states should explain.
I also noted there was some bizarre statement by the Victorian Government in relation to Geelong, that if only there was another public hospital in Geelong, which is a matter for them, they could do that, they have the power to do that, then this wouldn’t have happened.
The truth is the state is putting pressure on the private hospital system as well as blowing out their own waiting lists and ignoring $7 billion of additional funding we’re offering them.
JON FAINE:
Alright.
GREG HUNT:
And in the local areas, intense competition.
JON FAINE:
Alright. I’ve got some other issues I need to get to, but still on hospitals. Text message: three nights in hospital; asthma. April, local private hospital. Twelve hundred dollars in out of pocket expenses for three nights in a private hospital. Next time I’ll go public. There’s just no value.
And Jason from Eltham – finally, Minister – says: I thought we were subsidising the private system because of the costs, and that was supposed to provide us with better value and help them reduce the load on the public system. Now we’re told the public system’s destroying the private sector, taking the load back. Could we at least get the story straight, says Jason from Eltham.
GREG HUNT:
Look, I think the proposition’s very, very clear. We have choice in Australia. About 54.5 per cent of people have some form of private health insurance, and they overwhelmingly value it.
We just embarked on the biggest reform in a decade that’s delivered the lowest change in premiums in 17 years.
But there’s a lot more to be done, the biggest impact that is controllable is this harvesting of private patients, and the reason why it really matters to everybody is it both puts pressure on private health costs but it also makes public patients have to wait longer to get into hospital, and that’s not fair or right.
JON FAINE:
Okay. Now, your relationship with Pauline Hanson has turned out to be somewhat less reliable perhaps than the Prime Minister or the Treasurer thought. She said she will never, quote unquote, agree to your tax plan. So, what’s plan B?
GREG HUNT:
For us, we work with the Senate that the Australian people elected. And we’ve been very successful, far more successful so far than anybody had predicted, and that’s allowed us to work to a plan to create a positive business environment. The reduction …
JON FAINE:
Sorry, can I bring you back to my actual question please, Minister?
GREG HUNT:
No, no, let me- ultimately that’s how you get a million jobs created, if you create an environment where business can develop, invest, produce jobs…
JON FAINE:
For the third time, Minister, the question is: what’s plan B? Because Pauline Hanson’s shot down plan A.
GREG HUNT:
No, we keep going.
JON FAINE:
With what, though?
GREG HUNT:
And we always negotiate, and we always. I remember…
JON FAINE:
Keep going with what?
GREG HUNT:
You and I have had many discussions over the years where things that you perceived were impossible, we’ve subsequently been able to do, whether it was reducing electricity prices by repealing the Carbon Tax, whether it was passing Emissions Reduction Fund.
I remember we were told we would never get that through the Senate. And so, you have to work to a plan and that plan’s about improving the economy and we’ve…
JON FAINE:
So, what’s plan B?
GREG HUNT:
Well, the first thing is there’s $41 billion of savings which has allowed us to produce the business tax outcomes which has allowed us to create the jobs. Now, we keep working with the Senate. We always work constructively. I spoke with Mathias Cormann today, and he is ever optimistic. And…
JON FAINE:
Just as well, someone is. And just finally and briefly, aren’t the allegations raised by your colleague, Andrew Hastie about bribery of Dr Chau, evidence that Australia needs an anti-corruption body. We don’t have one, everyone else does.
GREG HUNT:
Well, I won’t comment on the specific case…
JON FAINE:
I’m not asking you to. Isn’t it evidence that we need an anti-corruption body to whom these can be referred?
GREG HUNT:
At exactly this moment, we have foreign interference laws before the Parliament. I’ve spoken with the Attorney-General today. He is very keen for those foreign interference laws to be passed.
JON FAINE:
They’re nothing to do with the matters raised by Mr Hastie.
GREG HUNT:
Well, actually these foreign inference laws go absolutely to what happens in relation to Australian engagement with other countries. And this follows directly from the Dastyari case as well.
JON FAINE:
That’s not what it’s about this is an allegation that an Australian-Chinese citizen is involved in bribery of officials at the United Nations.
GREG HUNT:
Well, whilst I won’t comment on the specifics of the allegations that have been raised, I do think …
JON FAINE:
No but I’d ask you not to raise a red herring either. Doesn’t it mean we need an anti-corruption body to whom these can be referred?
GREG HUNT:
No, what I think it does mean is that the foreign inference laws which are an extremely important step in transparency, in ensuring that in our dealings with other countries we are able to ensure that there is no undue influence in either direction…
JON FAINE:
But they would have nothing to do with this.
GREG HUNT:
I think these are extremely important laws to pass.
JON FAINE:
He’s not being alleged to have interfered in anything to do with Australia, he’s alleged to be an influential Australian citizen involved in bribery at the UN.
GREG HUNT:
So, if there are matters before the law, they’ll be investigated by the law. We have very, very strong laws but we want to strengthen them.
I will respectfully and categorically disagree with you. Foreign inference laws are being delayed by the Shorten Opposition, and they will be important for Australia’s transparency and our overall integrity of our system.
JON FAINE:
The longer you and your colleagues keep ignoring the strong public desire for a thorough and effective anti-corruption body, the more you’ll continue to lose support in the polls, I’d put to you. I think it’s an issue that the people have already clearly made their minds up about.
GREG HUNT:
And we are both looking at the same end but we’re looking at different means, Jon. And I say that very respectfully.
And the foreign interference laws are the fundamental pressing need that we have, and they came out of actions by, I’m sorry to say, an Australian parliamentarian, former Senator Dastyari who was given cover by the aspiring Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Shorten, who is now delaying these fundamentally important laws for integrity, for disclosure, and for protection of the system.
JON FAINE:
Well, if you had an anti-corruption body, you could refer them off to it too. Anyway, look, thank you for your time this morning. Greg Hunt is the Member for Flinders, he’s the Liberal Party’s Health Minister in the Coalition Turnbull Federal Government.
(ENDS)