Senator the Hon Anne Ruston
Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care
Shadow Minister for Sport

Wednesday 17 July 2024

Topics: ‘Future of Our Health’ Forum, regional health services.

E&OE

LEE: Let’s turn our attention to other matters, though. Last night the forum was held in Warrnambool under the title ‘Future of Our Health’. It was billed as a discussion and community forum, there were four speakers there from various levels of government opposition. At the state level; Roma Britnell, member for the South West Coast and Georgie Crozier, Shadow Minister for Health. They were there and at the federal level; Dan Tehan, member for Wannon, and Senator Anne Ruston, the Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care, were also present last night. And Senator Anne Ruston is with you this morning. Senator Ruston, welcome to you.

RUSTON: Good morning, Jeremy.

LEE: Was it a full house at the Mozart Hall last night?

RUSTON: It was a packed house last night, and there were people standing at the back, which was obviously a reflection of how concerned the local community is about the situation with their health services. Because, as we all know, health services are one of the most important things that hold a community together. And when they’re under threat, people want to have their say. And that’s exactly what they did last night.

LEE: So what was the format for last night, the four of you who I mentioned were there from those various levels of opposition, did you all make speeches or what actually happened?

RUSTON: We all quickly just gave a brief about who we were and what our areas of responsibility were. But the majority of the meeting was actually hearing from the floor about their concerns. There were many people there from the health sector within the community, whether it be local GP’s or people who work in the local area health networks who all put forward their concerns about what was happening with the health system here, and particularly the uncertainty that’s been created around things like board amalgamations and funding cuts that have been proposed from Melbourne.

LEE: Do you know if any government representatives were invited to attend as well last night?

RUSTON: It was an open forum for anybody, anybody could have attended. And it was certainly an open door policy to the best of my knowledge, nobody from the government or the bureaucracy attended, which was somewhat disappointing because it would have been nice to have heard from them about what their understanding of the situation on the ground here in Warrnambool is. Because it was a room of I suppose, concerned and angry people. Concerned about the uncertainty about their health services, but angry that they hadn’t been consulted. And there’s some suggestion that the local leadership, that is with the local health services in this area for so long, very well, would no longer be in control of local services and instead would be dictated to from the city about how those health services are applied on the ground here. And I think people were very concerned and very angry about that.

LEE: But do you know if a formal invitation was made or if approaches were made to actually inform the relevant people that that was happening and invite them to come to be a part of the discussion.

RUSTON: Well, as I said, anybody could have turned up. It was an open forum, but I was a guest as well. So, I wasn’t part of the organising committee, but certainly, there were a lot of people there. So...the wider community was pretty well aware of the fact that the event was on.

LEE: Okay. What were some of the main points in that came out of all of this for you last night? Some of the things that you perhaps will take back to your portfolio.

RUSTON: I think the strongest thing that comes out, and it has come out in places like, you know, businesses in Hamilton and Bendigo, has been around local communities want to be able to solve their own problems in their own unique set of circumstances. And they’re very frustrated by the bureaucracy in Melbourne or in Canberra, dictating to them about how they would respond to their health needs in their community. Because Canberra and Melbourne don’t live in this community, they don’t know this community best. And I think there was a lot of frustration that the community was being dictated to or told what to do, and then not being given the opportunity to have input into how they can best deliver health services in their community and how they can best serve and support their community. So that was, I suppose, the overarching message that came out of last night. But I think there’s also a frustration that, you know, your health outcomes shouldn’t be dictated by your postcode. You shouldn’t be having a better health outcome if you live in metropolitan Melbourne than if you live in Warrnambool or Ararat or Bendigo. And it’s quite clear, the trajectory that we’re on at the moment Is going to see services ripped out of rural, regional and remote communities. And that is the thing I think that that was of most concern to the people in the room last night.

LEE: And I guess you’re right. There’s been an awful lot of speculation, of course, around these amalgamations that you mentioned earlier and some of the fears that have been sort of raised, I guess, around the potential for loss of services because of that. Can we talk about your home state, though, South Australia? Because I understand that that is a process that has happened in South Australia in fairly recent times and has reduced your number of health services to ten. I’m not sure how many there were prior to that, but how was that played out?

RUSTON: Well, prior to going into the parliament, I actually sat on my local hospital advisory committee, which was a pretty sad alternative to our local boards, and I saw firsthand how removing the community leadership from community health services actually diminishes those services in the towns. And it’s very sad. Now, my home community of Renmark in South Australia, our hospital is barely a hospital anymore. The same thing can be said of other hospitals within the Riverland area. So I would say from personal experience that it has had disastrous impact. It doesn’t provide better services to the community. It doesn’t allow the community to take back ownership where...we used to have fundraising that would provide services, support services, to the hospital. Once you have a cash grab and the control rate that goes back to the city, people lose ownership of these assets. And so they go and do something else to volunteer and support their community. So I think with first hand experience, it has not proved to be a success in South Australia. So it’s disappointing Victoria’s following suit.

LEE: So there’s no argument, in your view, that, that there could be some good savings here in terms of cutting down on the amount of bureaucracy that that would be removed through something like this?

RUSTON: Well, history has proved that that isn’t what happens. Local leadership of local services, in local communities has always been the best way to deliver the best outcomes for communities. Of course we need to make sure that we’re using technology and innovation so that we can streamline the way we do administration. But that doesn’t mean that we have to be controlled out of the city. So I would say I think there’s a better way of doing this and making sure that we maintain local leadership, is so important for the delivery of services in community because it’s a very fabric of the community. It’s about community ownership, and it’s about a very sort of community. So I’d be saying to the local community, stand up and demand that your government in Melbourne actually answers all these questions, has a very strong look at the report that was done by a committee in New South Wales that found that this wasn’t the best way to go, have a look at the experience in South Australia before you push forward with this model that has actually proven to be quite disastrous in local communities in the past.

LEE: Right. So it sounds like, certainly there was a lot of opportunity there for people last night to voice some of the their fears and frustrations and so on. At this forum, what happens next then from here. Do you, I mean, does this lead to direct action on your part in any way?

RUSTON: Well, certainly, I’ll be raising the issue back in Canberra, as will Dan Tehan, and making sure that that we speak with one voice back in Canberra. But this is an issue that is really laid at the feet of Jacinta Allan and the Labor Party here in Victoria. They’re the ones who are making these proposed changes or suggesting these proposed changes. And I say to the community, if you don’t want centralised control of your health services, you need to speak up. I mean, a lot of people turned up last night and spoke up, we’ve seen rallies held in in areas around here because this isn’t just happening in Warrnambool. It’s happening right across, Victoria. I’d say voice your concerns, because if the government doesn’t hear you saying this is not what you want, the Government will just assume it’s okay for them to go ahead with it. So speak up and say that you’re not happy with what they’re proposing. And hopefully we can stop the government from making these decisions, or at least justifying why they’re doing it. Because they have no justification for doing this apart from they’ve basically run the government broke and they’re seeing this as a Money saving opportunity. They should not be using the health of Victorians as a scapegoat for the fact that they’ve mismanaged the money of the state.

LEE: We’ll leave it there Senator Anne Ruston. But thanks very much for your time this morning.

RUSTON: My pleasure. Thanks, Jeremy.

ENDS