Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and I would recommend that if he, for whatever reason, was distracted when the Minister for Health and Ageing gave her answer earlier in question time he studies the Hansard. What he will find from that Hansard and what she confirmed to the parliament is that our new investments in elective surgery are ensuring people can get elective surgery: eye surgery, knee surgery and the like. We have seen more procedures undertaken than the minister thought was possible when she announced the funds. She had announced that 25,000 would be done and in fact 27,000 or more have been done and she is running in front of time. Since this government came to office we have invested an additional $1 billion in health for a set of purposes and an additional $600 million for another set of purposes. As the minister indicated, these have been tied to outcomes. Importantly, some of the outcomes that they have been tied to have been these elective surgery procedures.

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