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

I thank the honourable member for Chifley for his question because we have had today not a single question from those opposite on health and hospital reform—not a single question. We stand here as a government that, within its two years in office, have delivered a 50 per cent increase in funding to public hospitals and of that the government is proud. What the government have done in our two years in office is to increase our overall training for GPs by a 35 per cent increase in GP training places. The government are proud of the fact that we have increased the number of training places for nurses. We have invested some $3 billion in the capital needs of our system and more than $1 billion in the overall cancer related infrastructure that we need right across Australia both in our larger cities and in our regional centres. That is what we have done in two years in office.

I say to those opposite, in particular the Leader of the Opposition, who did act as health minister for four to five years, he has been very touchy indeed today on his $1 billion gouge from the system. I think what we have had from the Leader of the Opposition is someone who has been somewhat loose with the truth on this question. What did the Leader of the Opposition actually say when first confronted with this? On 10 February when asked this question on radio, Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, said, ‘I did not rip a billion dollars out of health, the rate of growth was slowed somewhat.’ That was the excuse back then. Then we go to excuse No. 2 on the billion-dollar gouge from the system. In a penetrating and provocative interview, very searching in its questions from Alan Jones, on 2GB the Leader of the Opposition when asked this question about his billion-dollar gouge from the system—

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