Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, if it will help the House, I have three minutes to go and I will accept that you did not hear it. I understand that. The minister has really embarrassed herself in the parliament today but I will leave that to her. What we faced was a situation where this government had arrived at a ‘magic pudding’ arrangement. They cannot explain the figures—they have refused to explain the figures. The true figures will be borne out in estimates and over the coming months. We will see what happens in relation to that.

There were other measures in relation to the bill. The minister had tried to extend the power she had, which was completely inappropriate given the fact that this minister had proven herself not to be responsible with the use of figures. We had negotiations with the government which forced them into backflipping to agree to a position they put to the Senate. In relation to the injection into the eye—the Lucentis issue—the government has quite falsely claimed that they had any interest in this measure before being forced into it by the opposition. We accepted the advice of the patient group who came to us and said that they had been ignored by the government. We forced the government into a change in relation to that measure.

The government can dress it up however they like but in the end this has been yet another backflip by an incompetent health minister and we will fight to make sure that we improve the health outcomes in this country. We will not tolerate this minister misleading the debate. We will continue as an opposition to get good legislation and this has been an improvement. (Time expired)

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