Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I am running the health portfolio, madam. That is what I am doing. I am taking responsibility for things. I am delivering services. I am not just an empty, air-headed commentator engaging in a litany of complaints without knowing what I am talking about. I would like to take the member for Gellibrand seriously, but on the evidence of today’s speech there is nothing to justify that. The mere fact that members opposite chose to put the member for Gellibrand up today, of all days, the least watched day of the whole parliamentary year, shows how little they take her seriously and what little faith they have in her. The member for Gellibrand is like someone who, for the first time in her life, has landed at Heathrow airport and thinks, ‘I have discovered England,’ as though no-one has ever been there before.I have thought about these things myself. She says, ‘Prevention is better than cure,’ as though no-one has thought of this before in the whole history of the health portfolio.

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