Fixing health system will take time: PM

(AAP) - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says Australia's health system won't be fixed overnight, even though most states have now endorsed his reform plan.

All states and territories except Western Australia on Tuesday agreed to giving the
commonwealth control of 30 per cent of their GST revenues in return for it becoming
the dominant funder of the health and hospital system.
Mr Rudd told Nine News on Tuesday that although his plan would be rolled out from
July 1, it would not be a quick fix.
"I don't want to mislead people though, you can't turn round everything overnight,"
he said.
"There's an implementation period that extends over a three-year period, and that is
what we are committed to doing, that's why we provided such significant investment
today.
"But we do need better health and hospital services."
The prime minister has backed away from his threat to hold a referendum, even though
Western Australia has refused to buckle to demands to hand over a share of its GST.
Mr Rudd had offered $5 billion in sweeteners - including an extra $2 billion over
two days of negotiations to woo the states.
But WA, which fills national coffers with its mining royalties, wasn't won over by
the cash temptation.
"Twenty pieces of silver won't work with Western Australia and won't work with me,"
Mr Barnett told Sky News.
"You cannot buy Western Australia.
"I won't be party to that sort of horse trading."
Mr Barnett later said he was confident of striking a special deal within weeks that
will allow his state to contribute funds to Kevin Rudd's health and hospitals
network.
But he insists it'll be on his terms and won't involve handing over a third of WA's
GST revenues.
WA, NSW and Victoria had been resisting Mr Rudd's demands as the premiers headed
into the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting on Monday.
But, on the second day of talks, NSW and Victoria caved in to the prime minister's
demands, leaving Mr Barnett on his own when COAG finished on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr Rudd sold the COAG outcome as a deal 90 per cent done and remained confident of
reaching agreement with WA.
"We're pretty confident we can work something through with our friends in the west,"
he told reporters.
"It might take a bit of time, a bit of an arm wrestle ... we'll see how we go," he
said.
"In terms of commonwealth powers, we prefer to do these things on a co-operative
basis and that remains my preference."
However Mr Rudd did not rule out appropriating a share of WA's GST revenue and
putting it into the pool of funds.
The prime minister said the deal means the commonwealth will retain one third of the
GST from the states and territories and direct it to the health system, funding 60
per cent of building, equipment, teaching and services in 762 public hospitals.
The commonwealth would also fund all GP, primary care and aged care services, he said.
Work will begin in July to deliver Australians five key changes in health care, Mr
Rudd said.
That's 1300 new hospital beds plus another 2500 for those in aged care, as well as
6000 new doctors.
Emergency waiting times will take no longer than four hours and elective surgery is
to be delivered on time in 95 per cent of cases, he said.
The fifth element was a "historic" mental health reform, in which 20,000 young
people will get access to services, Mr Rudd said.
NSW Premier Kristina Keneally said the states had pushed strongly for many changes.
She said what sealed the deal was the $4.9 billion guaranteed funding for growth in
health costs into the future, a pooled funding arrangement with new guarantees to
protect the states and territories and Mr Rudd's offer of an additional $722 million
for NSW to implement the reforms.
Ms Keneally said negotiations had secured $1.2 billion for NSW in the first four
years of the agreement, with the guarantee of $4.9 billion funding after 2014, a
total of $6.1 billion in the next 10 years.
The NSW Premier said she was able to secure funding for additional hospital beds.
"What sealed the deal for us was your commitment this morning to an additional $800
million for additional beds."
Victorian Premier John Brumby, who initially had been a strong opponent of the
reforms, said the big achievement of the agreement was that there was "more money
now".
"All of us ... have argued that what we needed across Australia was more money now,"
he said.
"Not a commitment to more money in 2013/14 or beyond."
Mr Brumby said the reforms would enable almost 34,000 additional elective surgery
treatments to be performed in Victoria during the next four years.
He also praised the establishment of a pooled funding arrangement between the states
and the commonwealth, which would ensure a new bureaucracy didn't spring up in
Canberra.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the deal was a "no brainer" for a growth state
like hers.
"When a commonwealth government said it would accept responsibility for growth, we
thought, 'these reforms are good for Queensland'," she said.
The deal would give Queensland $4 billion for emergency rooms, elective surgery, new
hospital beds, mental health services and aged care, Ms Bligh said.
South Australian Premier Mike Rann said everyone knew state budgets would have been
"consumed totally" by future health funding unless they got a "real partnership"
with the commonwealth.
ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope said the territory would get an annual funding boost
of $150 million to 2020.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson said the agreement put patients
before politics.