Minister Barr: COAG: welcome Bandaid for hospitals, progress on protecting children
- Written by ACT Government
Released 01/04/2016
Canberra’s hospitals will get around $50 million in additional Commonwealth funding over three years following today’s COAG meeting.
While every one of these desperately-needed dollars is welcome, this deal falls shamefully short of plugging the hole left when the Liberals ripped $600m over 10 years out of the ACT health system. This gesture comes with particularly complex funding model so I was forced to negotiate further assurances that the ACT would not be worse off under this three-year deal.
The Commonwealth’s proposal to wash its hands of our public school students and just fund private schools was unsuccessful. If the Commonwealth doesn’t want to fund schools, it should handover its role in independent schools as well as public.
There was agreement to explore a share of income tax going to the states and territories. This goes some way to addressing the current imbalance whereby the Commonwealth collects more of the tax, while the states and territories deliver more of the services. However I do not support a patchwork of different income tax rates across jurisdictions.
I am particularly pleased there was agreement on my proposal to pursue the harmonisation of reportable conduct schemes.
This will further protect the safety of Australian children no matter where they live. Agreement was reached over coordinated initiatives, including the sharing of information between relevant independent oversight bodies, which monitor organisations with a duty of care to children.
This national approach will ensure the effective identification of child safety issues across the country and help build strong public confidence in organisations ability to respond to allegations of child abuse or neglect.
The commitment reflects a shared priority among states and territories to make positive change in the area of child protection in light of the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
- Statement ends -
Section: Andrew Barr, MLA | Media Releases
