John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

This country has a health system that essentially operates at three levels. There are those areas where, overwhelmingly, responsibility rests with the Commonwealth, and that is Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. It is fair to say that the best friend Medicare has ever had has been the Howard government. My colleague the Minister for Health and Ageing has just announced a major revamping of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that is going to save the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars over the years ahead. It is also going to mean that life-saving drugs are affordable and available. They are some of the areas where the Commonwealth has exclusive responsibility.

Another area is private health insurance. Labor is fundamentally opposed to private health insurance. The member for Lalor, who is still the spokesman on this matter, has made that very clear. It will be very interesting to see whether the dream team jettisons the commitment of the Labor Party against private health insurance. So they are areas where we have exclusive responsibility.

There are areas where the states have exclusive responsibility—for example, the operation of public hospitals. Although we provide about 43 per cent of the funding, the states run them. There are areas where the states and the Commonwealth need to cooperate. Over the last year the levels of cooperation between the Commonwealth and the states in some of these areas have even drawn critical comment from both sides of politics. I have been mildly upbraided by some of my colleagues in the states for being so cooperative with Labor premiers. Some of them have privately confessed to me that they have had a bit of stick from some of you on the front bench for being so cooperative with me. Premiers conferences, to quote the Premier of Queensland, seem to get better and better. The halcyon days of Commonwealth-state cooperation in these areas are the days of the last 12 months of the Howard government.

Let me say to the Leader of the Opposition, ‘Yes, you can always do better.’ We can all do better. But this government has gone out of its way to cooperate with the states. Yesterday I mentioned mental health, where the states are dragging the chain. They have not come up to the crease with their share. We put in $1.9 billion. I want the states to match every last dollar of that—that was the agreement. Queensland is only 50 per cent; the best performing state is Victoria, at 80 per cent; South Australia and Western Australia, ACT and Northern Territory, nothing extra. So let me say to those who sit opposite: talk to your state colleagues and get them to fully cooperate with us and we will have a much better health system.

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