Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2014-15 and cognate bills. These are significant bills that will set the foundation for Australia's future prosperity and will ensure this government has the ability to govern effectively and efficiently. Simply put, this is about money and the financial workings of government. This is about creating stability for Australians not just now as a short-term measure but for all future generations. Australia simply cannot afford to continue the atrocious legacy that was left behind by the former government—a legacy of waste and a legacy of cash-grab policies that were not only ineffective but hurt the hip-pocket of every Australian, their businesses and our major industries, including mining, agriculture and manufacturing.

This waste left every Australian with five record deficits and $123 billion as a future deficit—a deficit that at the election in September this government committed to fix, and through these appropriation bills it will do what it said it would do and deliver on those commitments. Last September, the Australian people made a choice—a choice to elect a government that stands up for each and every individual, our businesses and our industries and is a responsible government which will get our country back on track. If we took no action, debt would have hit $667 billion. That is why these bills are so important throughout Australia, but in particular for my electorate of Durack. Durack is the largest electorate in Australia; so, needless to say, I am very focused on securing a prosperous Australia for my constituents and on fighting for the key issues that affect them.

Regional health, in particular, has been a key focus of mine since being elected in September and it is something that I will continue to strive to improve. Regional health should be a concern for all those who sit in this place, if we want every Australian to have equal opportunity and access to these services. This government is one that lives in reality—a reality where no-one in this place or outside it is immortal. That is why, despite the type of access or level of service provision, every Australian will require access to medical services—and, as we know, some more than others.

This need for medical services will only continue to increase with Australia being faced with an ageing population, with 23 per cent of the population being predicted to be 65 and over by 2050. This will continue to place greater pressure on our welfare system and our health system. Strategic decisions have been made in each of these portfolios to ensure that Australians continue to have access to these much needed services but are not completely reliant on government support—to do so would be completely unsustainable and irresponsible.

To put it in perspective, by 2050 the number of people paying tax to support the payment of old-age pensions will be almost halved. Between 2010 and 2050, the number of people aged 65 to 84 will more than double and those aged 85 and over will more than quadruple. In Durack specifically, this ageing population is of particular concern with over 25 per cent of the electorate's population being over the age of 50 according to the ABS 2011 Census data. Given these pressures, government spending on many health programs will only continue to grow at an unsustainable rate unless fundamental changes are made and they are made now. That is why this government is committed to health and to ensuring that we can meet the growing demand for health care in the future.

We simply cannot rely on revenue from the Medicare levy and Medicare levy surcharge to offset the increase in cost to health care, particularly when the combined revenue from these sources is less than 20 per cent of total Commonwealth health spending. Health is a key area of spending growth with 4.1 per cent of GDP currently being spent within this portfolio. I am pleased to say that, despite this government's need to cut unnecessary spending and cut red tape that was implemented by the former government, regional health remains a key focus for the Minister for Health and for our Prime Minister. That is why, despite the Labor Party's false claims that the budget is cutting funding for health, overall health spending will in fact increase by more than $10 billion over the next four years through the implementation of this government's budget measures. It is because this government understands the health needs of Australians and wants to ensure that we are best placed to improve health services that a key budget measure from this government was the establishment of a $20 billion medical research future fund to find the cures of the future.

By making the health system more sustainable and by investing in medical research we are ensuring that Australia remains the best and healthiest place in the world to raise a family and to care for our loved ones. On top of this, the government has also committed to increasing annual federal assistance to the states for public hospitals by more than nine per cent every year for the next three years and by more than six per cent in the fourth year. That is a 40 per cent increase over the next four years, or more than a $5-billion-a-year increase in spending on hospitals.

Over three years, $13.4 million will also fund an additional 500 nursing and allied health scholarships with a value of up to $30,000 each. These will target workforce shortages in rural and remote areas. In addition, a very important regional service which has received a significant funding commitment of an additional $6 million in the budget is the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This is a key service that delivers extensive primary health care and 24-hour emergency services across the Durack electorate and to the furthest corners of Australia's rural and remote regions.

This health service delivery will go hand in hand with an additional $35.4 million over two years for the General Practice Rural Incentives Program, which provides incentives for medical practitioners to work in under serviced rural, regional and remote areas. Regional areas are continually faced with a shortage of medical practitioners with newly graduated GPs often conducting their internships in regional areas but leaving once their placements have concluded. I welcome this government's funding commitment to not only provide an incentive for medical practitioners to work in regional and remote areas but to keep them there as well as its focus on improving the lives of Australians who live in these areas through the provision of this funding and other related funding measures.

Over the years we have seen significant increases to the level of services being provided in regional and remote areas in Western Australia. If we look back 10 to 15 years, medical practitioners in towns such as Port Hedland in my electorate of Durack only had access to basic services such as X-rays, with more sophisticated examinations requiring patients to travel to Perth. This is despite the town having a well-established hospital with permanent medical practitioners. Fortunately, funding such as this has allowed medical treatments to progress with a substantial increase in the number of doctors based in regional and remote areas, including specialists and the growth of corporate medical clinics.

One significant development particularly for Durack's Aboriginal communities is the provision of local dialysis services for those suffering from kidney disease. The delivery of this service is particularly important to Durack, with the electorate having the third-highest proportion of Indigenous residents, or some 16.3 per cent. In fact, I recently welcomed more than $56 million in new Commonwealth funding for health services across regional Western Australia. The funding was part of the Bringing Renal Dialysis and Support Services Closer to Home project and will see expanded and new health services in Geraldton, Carnarvon Port Hedland, Roebourne, Broome, Kununurra, Derby and Fitzroy Crossing. This includes new 20-bed hostels in Broome, Fitzroy Crossing and Derby, while an eight-bed hostel will be established in Kununurra. Renal patient accommodation will also be provided at all four sites. In addition, we will also provide four much-needed renal dialysis chairs to be installed at Fitzroy Crossing and Roebourne. A five-bed hostel will be built in Carnarvon, which will also get renal patient accommodation, while clinical offices for regional support teams will be built in Geraldton and Port Hedland.

To encourage healthy living among Aboriginals from a young age, this government has also committed $13 million over the next four years to establish an additional 3,000 places for Indigenous students to take part in the Clontarf Foundation's sports academy program. The Clontarf Foundation has contributed much to the growth and development of Indigenous students across the Durack electorate through education, health and lifestyle initiatives. Clontarf's vehicle for achieving this is Australian rules and rugby league, and I note that basketball is included in that suite of sports now. It uses these sports not only to attract young Aboriginal boys and girls to school but to keep them there as well. The foundation has continued to grow since it opened its first academy for 25 boys on the campus of the Clontarf Aboriginal College in Perth, Western Australia, in 2000. In 2012 alone, the foundation opened nine new academies, including one in Fitzroy Crossing, which is in my electorate of Durack. There are also eight other Clontarf academies in Durack.

This government's commitment to regional health is also extended to key funding for aged-care services through a 10-year aged-care reform package. These reforms are aimed at offering choice and flexibility for older people living in the community and residential care, which will give consumers more choice, easier access and better care. A key focus of this reform is to improve the way home-care places are allocated across Australia under the aged-care approvals round, or ACAR, to better meet community demand and give providers more certainty. We have committed to residential, home-care and flexible care providers, who, under this budget, will receive an increase in funding of 2.4 per cent for their basic subsidy from 1 July 2014, while eligible programs such as the Commonwealth Home and Community Care Program will receive a 2.4 per cent increase in their funding.

Regional, rural and remote providers will also gain from a 20 per cent increase in viability support payments from 1 July 2014. These payments aim to improve the capacity of small rural aged-care service providers to offer quality care to residents. Providers do not need to apply for the viability supplement; it is simply paid automatically to eligible providers every month. It was only last week that I had the pleasure of welcoming the opening of the next aged-care approvals round. This round continues to expand the home-care package program, which provides individually tailored packages of home-care services to help older Australians remain independent, with residents in Western Australia now able to apply for 1,058 additional residential places and 672 additional home-care places.

This funding announcement goes hand in hand with my own recent review of the aged-care sector throughout the Durack electorate to gain on-the-ground feedback from relevant local government bodies and key stakeholders on the reforms that are needed to improve regional aged-care services. The focus of these roundtable meetings was to listen to the aged-care issues faced in these towns to find out how they could be improved by a collaborative effort between the three tiers of government and primary providers and to ensure that any existing plans or concepts are understood and included in our overall strategic review of Durack's aged-care sector. We have already identified key issues in the provision of aged-care service delivery in these regional towns, including: a significant increase in demand for aged-care services in towns which are considered 'aged-care friendly'; the need for an increase in high-end service delivery—it is, however, important to note that, as I have previously mentioned, the Commonwealth HACC program is still making a significant contribution to aged-care services and will continue to do so; and a lack of service providers in regional areas. By identifying the key areas where services are lacking, as well as the types of services that are needed, my aim is to ensure that any long-term plans to increase aged-care services in Durack are considered and implemented strategically.

It is clear that this government is committed to improving the lives of every Australian; in particular, of those living in regional and remote areas. This will not be an easy task, particularly when faced with a population that will increasingly become more reliant on our health services as that population ages. The only way forward for Australia is for each of us to contribute to savings, and get our economy back on track.

To pay for new hospitals and to provide all Australians with access to first-class medical facilities and practitioners, we need to balance the books—the same way each household has to balance theirs. The more we slide into debt, the harder it will be to pull ourselves out. That is why this government is taking the necessary steps to cut red tape and to implement cost-saving measures that will improve the lives of every Australian in the short and long term, but in particular for those in rural and regional areas.

I commend this bill and all cognate bills to the House.

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