Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Hansard source

My question again is to the Prime Minister. It refers once again to this important parliamentary report entitled The blame game: report into health funding. Is the Prime Minister aware that the government chair of the committee, the member for Fairfax, gave the committee an example of his 80-year-old constituent, a Mrs Smith, who had waited five years for a hip replacement, and went on to explain that because of the blame game he was unable to help Mrs Smith? Isn’t the member for Fairfax right when he says, ‘This is just ridiculous’? Prime Minister, if your own federal backbench are telling you this after 10 long years in office, why has the Prime Minister refused to take responsibility for ending the blame game and fixing the federation in this fundamental area of national reform?

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