Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Primary Healthcare) Share this | Hansard source

The more I read these amendments, the more questions they pose. In terms of amendment (7) I do have some questions about the reports which will be prepared by the performance authority. The amendments go into quite a lot of detail about what must be done if the report indicates poor performance, the consultation that must be done with the state and territory health ministers and that they must be given an opportunity to respond.

In reading the legislation and reading the amendments it is not clear what happens to the reports after they have been prepared. My question to the minister is: is there any requirement for these reports to be made public within a certain period of time? This is especially important in the area of quality and safety—there have been disasters in Australia, for example in the Bundaberg Hospital, and we do not want to see a repeat of what happened at Bundaberg Hospital. We need to know, if reports show poor performance in the local hospital network or in a public hospital, that these reports will ultimately be made public. Amendment (7) talks a lot about the consultation and the periods of consultation that are required but my question here is: what is the requirement on making these reports public? Is there a specific time line here? We would like to know when we will be able to see them and when these reports will be made public. I go back to my previous questions that still have not been answered on the area of primary healthcare organisations.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

They have not been answered, dopey.

See this speech in context