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

I certainly thank the member for Braddon for his question. I can inform him and the House that the Howard government wants to make the Mersey hospital in Tasmania a Commonwealth funded, community controlled public hospital because the state government is proposing to withdraw acute services from that hospital and, in so doing, leave a catchment of up to 70,000 people without general hospital services. Let me say for the benefit of all members of this House, including the people who are chattering away and the person who is turning his back: taking over a public hospital is not an easy thing. There are the financial arrangements to be considered, there is the future of staff to be considered, but most of all there is the continuity of care of patients which needs to be considered, because that cannot be interrupted for a single hour if people are serious about health policy and health service delivery.

I can inform the House that, after a somewhat rocky start, discussions between the Commonwealth and the state of Tasmania are now progressing well and a binding agreement should be signed within a week. I was interested to note that the Tasmanian government is already spending some of the extra money that it will receive as a result of this agreement. Taking over one hospital is no walk in the park. Taking over the 750 public hospitals of Australia would be the largest financial and logistical undertaking this country has ever seen, involving billions of dollars in assets, $24 billion a year in recurrent funding and the futures of hundreds of thousands of staff, including 200,000 nurses. If members opposite are elected, this deal will be in the hands of the member for Griffith, whose previous experience is of closing 2,200 public hospital beds in Queensland, thereby earning him the nickname ‘Dr Death’.

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