Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann

The Abbott Government will work with its State and Territory counterparts to drive much needed improvements in productivity and performance in the health care sector with the creation of a new health productivity and performance commission.

This decision, like others made in the Budget, will strengthen the economy and prepare Australia for the long term challenges before us.

The National Commission of Audit highlighted scope to improve the way data is collected, analysed and disseminated by a number of Australian Government bodies working in this sector. 

Subject to consultation, the formation of the new health productivity and performance commission would be enhanced by merging the following bodies:

• The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care;
• The Independent Hospitals Pricing Authority;
• The National Health Funding Body;
• The National Health Funding Pool Administrator;
• The National Health Performance Authority; and
• The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

These bodies all have related functions. Consolidating them would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Government’s efforts to improve the standard of safety and quality of health care for the Australian community.

Consolidation would also reduce the administrative and bureaucratic burden on State Governments which own and operate the nation’s 750 public hospitals.

Labor created a dozen new health bureaucracies and their separate administration and operational costs are projected to be millions of dollars over the forward estimates.

The Coalition has consistently argued that the creation of new structures and layers of bureaucracy was wasteful and that their key functions could be streamlined.

The Coalition committed to increasing productivity and to address the ballooning of bureaucracy under Labor.

As some of these bodies are subject to Federal-State arrangements, the Government will work collaboratively with the states to ensure that new arrangements serve the interests of stakeholders and the Australian community.