Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

He is just wrong but he cannot help himself.

What I really want to put to the member today—and maybe some of the other members in the debate might address some of these issues—is that we have to make choices now about how our health system will be sustainable and how we will fund some of the important reforms that the community rightly wants and expects. What we have seen the member opposite do—as he did with alcopops—is oppose any measure that has a health impact if it also has a budgetary impact. He opposed the private health insurance measure, a fair measure to make sure that those on the highest incomes get the least support and those on the lowest incomes get the most support. But they knocked that off, and that is $2 billion that will not be available in the health budget to spend on other worthy reforms. Then there are the safety net reforms, where we are saying we are not going to continue to line the pockets of specialists who are making outrageous sums of money—$2 million, $3 million, $4 million a year—from Medicare and the safety net. Now it looks like the Liberal Party might not keep the shadow Treasurer’s promise to pass all budget measures except the private health insurance measures. They have gone wobbly on that. That is another $450 million.

Just those two items are worth $2½ billion. I would like the Liberal Party to tell me what they are going to cut if they are going to oppose these sensible savings measures. I want the Liberal Party to stand up and say what they want to cut. Do you want us not to proceed with our regional cancer centres across the country? Do you want us not to proceed with the funding of Avastin for bowel cancer? Do you want us not to consider the next life-saving drug that comes out to be put on the PBS for young children? Do you want us not to invest in these important things? Perhaps the member does not want us to invest in the vaccine for swine flu. If you keep opposing savings that are sensible and targeted and require people who have more resources to contribute more, then we will not have the money to pay for these important extra investments.

I think everyone on this side of the House wants our investments to be targeted and wants to see the health system delivering more for people, and it cannot be done if we do not make sure we have the money to do it. We do not have the Liberal Party with any policies. We do not have them with any answers about the difficult choices they could make. We do have the member for Dickson on the record as saying that the one thing he wants to make sure we do not do is repeat in the next decade the mistakes his government made in the last decade. We are absolutely sure we are not going to do that, but to not do that we need to make sure we are investing more, we are requiring more accountability and we are targeting our spending to those who need it most. We do not make any apologies for investing in communities like Western Sydney, for investing in Westmead. I see the member for Parramatta is here. Westmead has another $4.1 million going into its medical assessment unit. We can see something similar for every member of the House. What have you ever done?

Debate interrupted.

See this speech in context