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

I thank the member very much for her question. All of the members on this side are very proud that in this budget we increase hospital funding every single year. And we increase it by a record amount. The fact is that in this budget hospital funding increases by over $5 billion or around 40 per cent over the next four years.

I am very proud that we have been able to deal with Labor's debt and deficit disaster, that we have been able to pay down Labor's debt, and that at the same time we have been able to increase by record amounts the money that we put into our public hospitals. The reality is, as the Prime Minister said earlier in question time: each year over the next three years we will increase hospital funding by nine per cent and, in the fourth year, we will increase it by over six per cent. We inherited enormous debt when we came into government and, as has been rightly pointed out, we are borrowing $1 billion a month just to pay the interest bill. If we did not make changes over the course of the next 10 years, that monthly interest bill would grow to $2.8 billion.

If we did not get Labor's debt under control, it would mean we would have to take tough decisions and it would mean that in future years we would have had to cut hospital funding—which, in this budget, we do not do. We are increasing hospital funding each and every year as we go forward. I am very proud of the fact that we have been able to manage Labor's debt and deficit disaster and that we will increase by $1.3 billion the funding that will flow to state hospital services over the course of the next year. In 2015-16 there will a nine per cent increase or more to $1.4 billion in that year. In 2016-17 we are increasing hospital funding across the country by nine per cent or $1.5 billion. We will increase hospital funding going forward on a sustainable path.

In this country, 10 years ago we had 2.5 million people over the age of 65. In 10 years' time there will 4.5 million people over the age of 65, and we have to make the changes today to make sure that our hospital system and our health system are strengthened into the future. But, if we do not deal with Labor's debt and deficit now, we will not be able to provide the $15 billion a year that we are providing this year, and which is growing each and every year, toward our public hospitals around the country. The coalition was elected to clean up Labor's mess not just in relation to the boats and the economy but in relation to the health portfolio as well. We will take money away from those great big new health bureaucracies that they created. We will put it back into front-line services. That is why we have put the health system on a sustainable path as our population goes forward.

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