The COAG meetings during the remainder of 2008 will focus on finalising policy reforms and the new financial arrangements, which will in turn reform Commonwealth–state relations; I am confident this will be for the better.

As well as a full policy agenda, addressing these key challenges will be a major focus of endeavour for COAG officials for 2009.

The new National Healthcare Agreement will set the groundwork for the first stage of health system reform.

The final report of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission in June 2009 will provide recommendations for a second round of reforms to address the interface between the public and private health sectors, the health workforce and integration of care across the health system.

We also need to reform service delivery with a ‘citizen-centred’ focus that can be more responsive to community needs.

As the Prime Minister said early in 2008, we must ‘continue to reform the system of government and government service so that citizens lie at the centre, rather than the inflexible behemoths of official bureaucracy’.

I agree with the Prime Minister that government is not the repository of all wisdom, that there are limits to what governments can effectively do and that the private and community sectors have much to offer.

We look forward to working with groups across the community to improve the delivery of government services.

I believe the Commonwealth and state and territory governments have a great opportunity to reach agreement.

And I am also confident, given the evidence of goodwill that I have seen from states and territories and the Australian Local Government Association (ALGA), that we can achieve far-reaching reform.

From the Commonwealth’s point of view, it marks just the beginning—the beginning of a period of long-term reform to tackle the nation’s long-term challenges; we have to achieve this in order to ensure better outcomes for the people of Australia.