Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome that interjection from the member for Ballarat, because, let me assure you, these promises from Labor have been coming since 2007. The original proposal from Labor was that these superclinics would be set up and that people would be diverted away from emergency departments, but quickly they retreated from that statement because there has not been one shred of evidence in the last six years that any patient has been diverted away from an emergency department. At the same time, the Labor Party created 12 great, big, new health bureaucracies in Canberra. There are now 21 bureaucracies in addition to the department of health—and we do not run a single hospital. We do not employ a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist that sees a patient. Yet, Labor diverted money away from these communities into these bureaucracies in Canberra. It is an absolute disgrace. I can tell you one thing: this government will not make the same mistakes that Labor did. We will put money back to frontline services and we will clean up Labor's mess in health.

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