COAG agrees to $15.1B in new funding

Federal-state relations have taken a "strong step forward" with an extra $15.1 billion in funding for the states over the next five years, says Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Premiers and chief ministers appeared pleased with the result, nutted out after a
meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) on Saturday, and improving
on the commonwealth's original offer of $11.1 billion.
The deal means $64.4 billion in funding over five years for health and hospitals, an
increase of $22.4 billion over the previous agreement.
It includes more training places for doctors, nurses and other health professionals,
money for preventative health and for indigenous health.
Education and schools will receive total funding of $46.4 billion, an increase of
$8.3 billion, focusing on teacher quality, school principal leadership and schools
in disadvantaged communities.
COAG also agreed to spend $806 million on indigenous health and $800 million on
reducing homelessness.
Mr Rudd said the package was a good outcome in very difficult economic circumstances.
"It'll be a tough year in 2009 for all of us but there's a good resolve among us
that we intend to hunker down together and work together," Mr Rudd said.
He flagged a special COAG meeting in Darwin mid-next year focusing on indigenous
health.
Mr Rudd met the Premiers and chief ministers for breakfast at The Lodge in the
morning before meeting formally for several hours at Parliament House.
He later told a joint news conference that the past 12 months of COAG meetings had
produced significant reform including a cut to the number of different specific
purpose payments to the states from 96 to just five.
"This is one of the largest reforms to the structure of commonwealth-state relations
that we have had in the recent history of the federation."
Mr Rudd said the new funding package would create 133,000 jobs and provide economic
stimulus while continuing to drive a national reform agenda.
The new health funding includes $1.1 billion to train 212 new GPs, 73 new
specialists, 18,000 nurse supervisors and 7000 new medical supervisors.
"This has been a big missing area in the commonwealth's engagement in health reform
in the past dealing with the national health workforce challenge," Mr Rudd said.
Australian Medical Association president Dr Rosanna Capolingua welcomed the training
funding as "excellent news". It would help maintain medical standards.
Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the agreement on health funding finally put an
end to "the backward slide" in funding from the commonwealth in the past decade.
She said it would deliver new services in hospital emergency departments, new
surgical procedures and work on preventative health measures.
Victorian Premier John Brumby praised the health funding saying he could not have
wished for a better outcome.
"It means more throughput in our hospital emergency departments, it means more
elective surgery treatment and it means lower waiting lists," Mr Brumby said.
South Australian Premier Mike Rann said such a COAG deal would not have been
possible 18 months ago.
"The issue of health care reform was banned from discussion at COAG meetings," Mr
Rann said.
The meeting also settled special purpose payment agreements on disability services,
business deregulation and housing.
Mr Rudd said the next step was to finalise a list for short-term infrastructure
spending from the Building Australia Fund early next month.
Next year, he said, the focus for the first COAG meeting next year would shift to
climate change including a renewable energy target and the future of energy
efficiency.