SENATE

102 SENATE Thursday, 13 October 2016
in the Central Coast region they want to privatise Wyong Hospital. This Sunday at 11 am, at the Morrie Breen
Oval on Wallarah Road in Kanwal, there will be a community gathering of concerned residents from right across
the coast who have seen Premier Baird decide he should privatise five hospitals, including Wyong. The impact of
that is very, very concerning, particularly in light of evidence that we have received about the scale of the New
South Wales cuts.
Mr Baird, it seems, has decided that instead of taking on his colleagues here at federal level he is going to cut
services to the people of New South Wales. He is letting his federal colleagues get away with their massive cuts to
New South Wales. Why is he in this situation? Let's talk about what the scale of this is. This is evidence we
received from Dr Andrew McDonald, a paediatrician from Campbelltown Hospital who was formerly the health
minister in a Labor government and who understands the budgetary implications of these cuts very well indeed:
The annual hospitals budget, from New South Wales, is about $20 billion. That is one year's salary, effectively … You can
close the system for a year or you can fund to meet demand … $18.3 billion so it is, virtually, a year's New South Wales
hospital budget worth of cuts.
That is what New South Wales is attempting to accommodate and, rather than take on his federal colleagues, Mr
Baird is starting to cut the services for New South Wales.
We heard about what it means on the ground. In evidence that we received in March 2015 to the select
committee hearing in Gosford, the Australian Paramedics Association told the committee of the serious impacts
that increasing resource pressures are having on paramedics. These are vital people, who come to respond to
emergencies on the ground in our community on the Central Coast. They said that due to at-capacity emergency
departments, ambulances are being forced to 'ramp' until an emergency bed becomes available. Mr Jeff Andrew,
the Vice President of the Australian Paramedics Association, explained that a two-hour ramp at peak periods is
not unusual. A ramp is when an ambulance crew cannot discharge the patient that they brought to the hospital.
They have to stay there with them and cannot go to the next call. Mr Andrew said a recent experience of a sixhour
ramp would become common.
That is what we are starting to hear more and more of in the community. I am sure that people who attend this
community rally, this community gathering of concern about the cuts to their health access and health services,
will hear, sadly, more stories of the impact of the cuts from this federal government.
Mr Andrew described the whole system as 'overwhelmed'. When he was asked what additional pressures would
result from the government's decision to cut $56 billion over eight years from the hospital system, combined with
the government's additional measures to cut primary care—which I have not even mentioned in my speech yet—
Mr Andrew, a paramedic on the front line said this:
I think we will get more sick patients if the primary health care is not attended to. I mentioned some patients, like asthma
patients and patients with a chronic disease like emphysema, who have been better managed because there are good strategies
and care plans in place for them. Any budget cuts in that area will only reflect to us getting them at a sicker state. There will
be a higher burden on the presentations in the health system.
So, we have a twin attack on the health and wellbeing of people across the nation and in the great state of New
South Wales that I represent. In a climate where its funding has been cut to the bone, the New South Wales
government is inflicting pain on communities, and the further away you are from Manly and Mr Baird, the harder
he is cutting. This needs to stop.
I seek leave to continue my remarks later.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
Economics References Committee
Report
Consideration resumed of the motion:
That the Senate take note of the report.
Senator LEYONHJELM (New South Wales) (18:12): In the previous parliament I chaired the 'nanny state
inquiry'. A final report was not produced because of the election, but some excellent interim reports were issued.
One of the issues that the committee examined was the Sydney lockout laws.
On 7 July 2012, at around 10 pm, 18-year-old Thomas Kelly was fatally assaulted in a one-punch attack in
Kings Cross. In response, the New South Wales government introduced legislative and policy changes affecting
the sale and service of alcohol at licensed venues in Kings Cross and other areas of central Sydney. Venues in the
Kings Cross precinct were subject to special licence conditions. Every night of the week there was a ban on
glasses, glass bottles and glass jugs after midnight. For Friday and Saturday late night trading there was a ban on
CHAMBER