Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One was working hard on policy; the other one was working hard on developing his physical attributes. One is a hard worker and an ironman when it comes to national policy; the other one is a hard worker and an ironman when it comes to his sporting achievements. We are in the national parliament here: it is about being an ironman on policy, not in the sporting arena.

People in my electorate of Leichhardt want to see reform in health care and they welcome the announcements we have made about providing more than 6,000 new doctors, cutting emergency department waiting times and providing new hospital beds. The investments we have made in elective surgery have already made a difference to many people in my electorate, who have had hip replacements, urinary surgery and other types of elective surgeries that they would not have necessarily got without those increased investments. The commitments in the budget build on that very good work. There will be an extra 5,000 aged-care places and tough new uniform national health and hospital standards. These are national reforms that will have an impact locally. We are about having a health system run locally but funded nationally, for the first time ever, and the reforms build on work that has already been done—such as improving local cancer services in Cairns through our new radiation oncology facility. We have already delivered a new MRI scanner for Cairns Base Hospital, a GP superclinic and a new dental school, which I have already talked about.

And what do we get from the opposition? We know that when the opposition leader was health minister he cut $1 billion from public hospitals, he cut GP training places—and we have a doctor shortage—and he left a national shortage of 6,000 nurses. This was what Mr Abbott did as health minister in the former Howard government. In the budget reply, we see he wants to cut almost another $1 billion. Mr Hockey announced $822 million in cuts—actually, he did not identify them; Mr Abbott passed it on to Mr Hockey who passed it on to Mr Robb, and Mr Robb announced $822 million in cuts. So Tony Abbott, the opposition leader, cut out almost $1 billion when he was health minister under the former Howard government. I am sure this is just the beginning. He also cut e-health.

… without an integrated health record system, effective and efficient team care will be almost impossible. Queues will be longer and costs will be higher as health professionals under pressure keep asking the same questions and ordering the same tests.

Who do you think would say that? The opposition leader. He wants to cut e-health by half a billion dollars, but he said e-health was critical, was important reform. That was on 8 December 2005, a few years ago. Let’s see what the opposition leader said in 2007:

Failure to establish an electronic patient record within five years, I said, would be an indictment against everyone in the system, including the Government.

And he went on to say further things.

What we know about this government is that we have steered this country through some difficult economic times. We have delivered a budget that will bring us back into surplus three years early—a very responsible budget. What we know about the opposition is that they are about cutting health, cutting education and not supporting a fair share of our natural resources being distributed to all Australians. That stands in stark contrast to the actions of this government. (Time expired)

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