Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

He interjects: ‘That didn’t make much of a difference.’ The Leader of the Opposition would be interested to know that it made a difference to 62,000 elective surgery procedures, which, as health minister of Australia ripping a billion dollars out of the system, he sought simply to undermine. Thirdly, 37 hospitals are receiving upgrades to their emergency departments. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition’s record on direct funding to emergency departments was zero as health minister—not one brass razoo, not a single dollar either to emergency departments or to elective surgery.

Then there is $3.17 billion for 36 major health infrastructure projects. This is the first government in Australian history to directly invest in the capital that is the building needs of the public hospital system of Australia. What did he say for four years as health minister of Australia? He said: ‘That’s not my problem. It’s the states’ problem.’ What we have done, for the first time, is invest directly in our hospitals. That is why we are investing $100 million into the future development of the Nepean Hospital. That is why we are going to make investments like that elsewhere in the country as well.

He asked about achievement and honouring our commitments to improve health outcomes for the Australian people. Five hundred and sixty thousand teenagers have received a check-up under the Medicare Teen Dental Plan, which did not exist when he was health minister. It was brought in by us, and half a million kids, often from lower income profiles, are getting a dental check-up which they would otherwise not have got.

The Leader of the Opposition sat on his hands and did nothing about the chronic shortage of nursing places in Australia. Therefore, under this government in its first year of operation, 2009, universities offered an additional 1,094 undergraduate nursing places. When he was health minister, this man froze GP training places. How could he do that against the health needs of the nation? Since coming into office we have increased GP training places by 75 in 2009 alone. A further achievement—and they often guffaw about as if there is something remarkable about it—is the implementation of the GP Super Clinics program across the country. We are funding 36 of them across the country. How many did they fund? Zero. Funding agreements underpin 28 of them, and a number are already operating, compared to a record of zero on the part of those opposite. Aged care places have increased by nearly 10,000. Six hundred and sixty-two transitional care places have been delivered to help nearly 5,000 older Australians, and the Leader of the Opposition gets to his feet and says, ‘Where is your integrity on the question of health and hospitals?’

I say to him that in two years alone we have achieved more by way of investments into the system than he achieved in 12 years in the previous government. That is the basic comparator, which is why I said to him earlier today that we welcome fundamentally this debate on health and hospitals. And let us never forget that as a member of the government he axed the Commonwealth dental program, with 650,000 Australians on public dental waiting lists.

I go back to where this debate began. Why have they brought it on today all of a flush and all of a hurry? Because of their fear of the member for Wentworth being on television tonight. We know what the member for Wentworth had to say earlier in his general character reference concerning the Leader of the Opposition. His reference to the Leader of the Opposition and the policy he was putting forth in terms of climate change was this:

Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing.

That is what the member for Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull, said about Tony Abbott. I think the Australian people spot this for what it is. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Abbott’s) be agreed to.

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