Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Prevention is better than cure, and I only wish that that had been the attitude of the previous Labor government under which we saw the running down of facilities right across rural Australia. It is thanks to this government that we in the rural areas of Australia have finally been seen and heard.

We heard in question time today from the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry of a Labor policy that used the word ‘drought’ once—and then it was only used in the context of the effect that it might have had on the city! That is just a taste of what did happen under Labor and what would happen again if Labor gained government. We would get exactly the same treatment that is dished out by the Iemma New South Wales government.

If we look at the issues that have been addressed by this government in its tenure since 1996, it is only this government which has indeed promoted flexible and sustainable healthcare services for small rural and remote communities and regional Australian people. And it has achieved this by maintaining and improving our access to health, aged care and other community services, in order that we may access preventive treatments.

I have looked at the services in cancer care that we had available to us in the country areas prior to this government taking an interest in rural and regional people. We have talked about an active workforce and about workforce productivity. Let me tell you: in rural Australia, prior to this government coming into its position, we had no choice. If you had cancer, you had no choice but to travel to a city hospital or facility. You had no choice but to be stranded in the city in order to achieve your, maybe, five minutes of radiotherapy or 10 or 20 minutes of chemotherapy a day, and you were there for months on end. You were unable to work. You were unable to be productive because you could not be in the town you were employed in, because you had to travel to a city.

Only this government took an interest and said, ‘We will provide cancer care services to rural and regional people.’ Before that, the choice was this: if you lived in the city and you contracted cancer, you had ample opportunity to live; if you lived in the country and you contracted cancer, unless you went to the city you died. Many people simply could not make that step to the city. And some people had to be there for months or even a year at a time in order to get their treatments. How productive were they? Instead, this government brought the facilities to rural people so they could stay in their communities, access the treatments and have parity and equity with city people. That is what has been provided—and only by this government and, in particular, by this health minister, the Hon. Tony Abbott.

The number of GPs in rural and remote areas has increased by over 20 per cent. This has been facilitated by the funding of 14 new rural clinical schools, the first of which I was very proud to have in Wagga Wagga. They were then rolled out across other areas. We can see the success of this in that you can train and retain rural professionals, particularly in the health professions, in the country, and they are more likely to stay in the country and practise.

We have awarded over 430 medical scholarships under our Rural Australia Medical Undergraduate Scholarship Scheme. This is for the long term, to encourage practice in preventive health. Firstly, in order to have preventive health, you have to have health professionals in the country; you just cannot walk through any door and get provided with a series of services as you can in the city.

We have also introduced appropriately trained overseas doctors—270 of them—to fill those vacancies in the short term. And those people are appropriately filling those places in order to give us access to treatment. You might talk about preventive care, but no-one deserves to have no access to treatment at all, rather than just to be accessing preventive care. No-one has done more for the diabetes, asthma and other early intervention programs that are being delivered jointly with government GPs and pharmacies than this government. (Time expired)

See this speech in context