The Productivity Commision’s Inquiry into the Health Sector
As far as Canberra is concerned, this week’s about ‘productivity’. Productivity Commission Chair Danielle Wood will today address the National Press Club, on Tuesday an Economic Reform Roundtable (formerly billed as a ‘productivity summit’) will begin at Parliament House, and on Friday we will have an announcement of success.
Does that sound cynical? Well, perhaps, but that’s the reality of the politics surrounding the event.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers placed productivity on the agenda, pushed by Wood. Both can see the vital need for real reform to push growth. There was effectively no growth in 2023-24.
Slower productivity growth translates to slower growth in GDP. More critically for disability, calls to cut the NDIS will become louder. Our sector is tied to national outcomes.
Unfortunately, the PC’s desire for a round-table has been skewed by the political process. Instead of the real investigation it wanted, that desire’s been transformed into what’s becoming a stage-managed display. Real initiatives will disappear as the conversation becomes subsumed in macro-economic debates.
Pete Horsley, founder of the Cerebral Palsy Alliance’s Tech Accelerator Remarkable, hit the nail on the head with a LinkedIn post last week.
Disability and Aged Care has contributed somewhere in the order of 660,000 jobs and in the last 10 years has had a growth of 65%. Now come on - are we seriously ignoring the need and opportunity to have R&D in the Disability and Ageing Sectors?!!
The point is, in disability care the great leaps won’t come from simply making beds faster. The really big advances come from doing and looking at the old problems in a new way.
When genuine issues become swallowed into the political process, the potential for real outcomes disappears.
Inside the parliamentary triangle, the roundtable is being observed as a surrogate for Chalmer’s political ambitions to replace the PM. It’s not, but this has an effect on Anthony Albanese’s willingness to endorse big outcomes from the process. He will, unconsciously, be applying a brake on the process.
Inevitably, everybody pushes their own objectives. Real solutions become lost in the noise.
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It’s important that none of this should take away from the other important point made by analyst Brendon Grail. He says one point made in this analysis is spot on.
"Greater alignment of safety and quality regulation in the care economy is needed,” it emphasises. “Regulation is essential for protecting people’s rights and safety, but taking different approaches across sectors creates risks and reduces choice for care users and leads to unnecessary costs for care workers and providers."
Grail’s take is short and to the point:
100% spot on. Thanks to Alison Roberts Martin Stokie Dr Angela Jackson for hitting the nail on the head with every single one of their recommendations. Personally, I'd prefer some of the suggested timelines to be shortened e.g. waiting 6 years for a single merged regulator covering aged care, NDIS and veterans' care, seems a little long to wait for something that will deliver such significant benefit.
There is a real need for this type of thinking. It is vital, not just for analysis of the sector, but to drive the urgent needed to ensure it continues to generate the sorts of reform that will drive improvement.
Success in this endeavour won’t be found in this week’s round-table. It will, hopefully, be obtained by the push for continuing reform in the sector that we hope to continue pushing for in future.