The Federal Government will push for new reforms in health care and education when the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meets in Adelaide today.
The Government plans to use today's COAG meeting to announce plans to train 50,000 new health workers in areas it says are suffering critical shortages, including dentistry, nursing and Indigenous health.
State and territory leaders will be asked to sign up to new performance standards for hospitals and will be briefed on plans for a common approach to learning in schools.
The Government hopes the states will at least agree to tougher performance requirements for public hospitals.
Any discussion on the Commonwealth's planned takeover of water management in the Murray-Darling Basin is likely to be brief - water is listed as item number 10 on the COAG agenda.
After coming to power trumpeting a new brand of cooperative federalism, South Australian Farmers Federation president Wayne Cornish wonders why there has been no progress on the water takeover.
"We want to see some activity, we want to see some decisions, we want to see things moving forward," he said.
Victorian Premier John Brumby says he will not sign on until the rights of Victorian farmers are properly protected.
"We have in a sense [the] most to lose if there is a national approach, which isn't an approach which is favourable to Victoria," he said.
"We do have to be careful with the way we negotiate this."
Source: By Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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