Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister, in his dissertation on health today and in question time as well, referred to the PET scanner at the Royal North Shore Hospital and said that it took 11 years for us to make a promise. I was first approached in 2004 about this program by Paul Roach, the acting Professor of the Department of Nuclear Medicine. The now Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, as Minister for Health and Ageing, met those people in 2007. He met Associate Professor Paul Roach, Dr Chris Arthur and a number of other representatives on 29 June 2007. As a result of that meeting, he committed $3.5 million in funding for a new PET scanner at the Royal North Shore Hospital. I should add that the money was allocated when this government came in, but I and the members of the Royal North Shore professional nuclear medicine department were so concerned—

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