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

I thank the member for Throsby for her question, as I know that in her part of Australia she places particular importance on the delivery of local healthcare services. Health and hospitals are a big part of the nation’s future because so many working families depend on them. Each year, Australians make 115 million visits to their local doctor. Every year our nation’s 768 public hospitals provide nearly 50 million hospital services to the Australian public. The workforce here is huge: some 60,000 doctors, 230,000 nurses and 134,000 allied health professionals. Taxpayers are currently spending $71 billion-plus each year to support the system.

Could I also go to the demands being placed on our system now and into the future from the increase in our population, the ageing of our population and the improvements in medical technology. We project a very large increase indeed in the period ahead in the total national investment in our health and hospital system. Based on current projections, that equates to an increase in average Australian government health spending per person from $2,290 per year today to $7,200 by 2050. That is the trajectory we are on.

The other point which is relevant here is the capacity of the states and territories in the future to fund the hospitals and the health services on which Australian families depend. The member for Lyne just asked a question. I visited the hospital in Port Macquarie in his electorate, and the message came through loud and clear that that hospital needs to be able to plan better and resource better for its future needs. Here is where the rubber hits the road: state outlays are being increased on health and hospitals right now by about 11 per cent per year and state own-source revenues are growing by about four per cent per year. That is why there is a funding crisis as well.

14:59:45

The honourable member’s question went to the government’s investments in this area. I refer again to the $64 billion investment that we have made already through the National Healthcare Agreement. That represented a 50 per cent increase on the agreement which preceded it; the agreement in which the then minister for health, the current Leader of the Opposition, extracted $1 billion from the hospital system. Also, we have invested $1.1 billion in training more doctors; in contrast to the then minister for health, the current Leader of the Opposition, who froze GP training places. We also have increased our investment in the provision for nurses and nothing was done to deal with the shortage of nurses during the previous minister’s occupancy of the position.

This also brings us back to how we fund responsibly the future needs of our health and hospital system. There is a piece of legislation up in the Senate called the PHI, which those opposite are standing in the way of passing, which would deliver some $2 billion to assist in the future injection of capital into our overstretched health and hospital system—$2 billion from the wealthiest Australians who are currently being cross-subsidised by poorer Australians and middle-class Australians. That is why we are proceeding with that reform.

Those opposite interjected before about primary health care and about GP superclinics. I would say to the shadow minister for health, the member for Dickson, or those members opposite who do not find health faintly interesting, that he should also have a clear look at how his GP superclinic is now performing in Strathpine; and the reporting in the local press from those who have been out there supporting it, as doctors and local users of the system, because it is providing flexible out-of-hours services. The other day at Ballan, in the seat of the member for Ballarat, we also saw reports from the local authorities about what was necessary and happening there in terms of flexible delivery of services in that community.

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