Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In 2010 when I was a candidate, Queensland X-Ray wanted to put a PET/CT into a private setting away from the hospital grounds. The reason was that PET/CT is high-end imagery and is radioactive, but it is essentially outpatient work. In Townsville the hospital is at Douglas and parking is difficult—although people in big cities do not understand this—so they were going to put it at one of the Mater facilities in Bayswater Road right in the heart of town. So, whilst your loved one was having a PET/CT scan, you could do the shopping at Castletown or in Woolworths at Hermit Park and you could get on with your life.

The state government and the Labor Party objected to it and said that if we were going to get one—which we did not need—it should go in at the hospital. The problem around this was that Queensland X-Ray was prepared to put it in with a federal government input of only $2 million. To put it in at the hospital would have cost $9 million. So, when it comes down to health, when it comes down to the system of health, what happened was that Queensland X-Ray went ahead with it, then Queensland Health put in another one at the hospital. Firstly, Queensland Health were saying that we did not need one, so we got one through private enterprise, then Queensland Health, using the taxpayer dollar, put another one in our hospital. This is the problem with health. This is the problem with overspending in this area. When it comes to health, no matter what the system is, no matter where you go in this system, after a time can you look at the system and ask: can it be improved, can it run faster, can it run differently, can it run more efficiently? As the member for Bowman has already said, if we can find efficiencies in one area of health, we put it back into others.

When it comes to computerisation and technology, the speed with which we can do things is absolutely amazing. Since the microchip was invented there are only two areas where you will find that more people are employed as a result of the microchip. One is in computer shops and the other is in the public service. The public service has actually increased in size from the 1970s to now, even with the multitude of digitalisation and ICT that goes into these things. It is not because they are perceived as lazy or anything like that. There are reasons for the increased employment in both areas.

People's lives change and work is increased with every Labor government. Dealing with any government department today requires patience as public servants battle to handle the myriad of requests which complicate lives. Every member here understands what is going on when they deal with complaints about the public service, or complaints about Medicare or Centrelink or any government department. You have to have the patience of Job to stay on the phone. But that is not the fault of the public servants. That is the fault of inadequacies in the system that lets qualified and hardworking public servants stay in menial jobs when we should be simplifying methods where we can and shifting those highly trained public servants into areas where they can assist the clients, our constituents, the people in our cities. If we are to streamline more of the easy stuff and save money with innovation and digitalisation, we can provide better services all over.

We have a budget in deficit. We have an opposition fixated on saying no to everything that we bring into this House to save money. We have the member for Ballarat coming in here and decrying the issue of dental care. This is the same Labor Party that cut the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme. This is the same Labor Party that said, 'If you've got a mouthful of fillings and you've qualified for this you have until December 31 to get this through, otherwise you will have to wait 12 months before you can get anything under the new system.' This is the same Labor Party that moved those people. Essentially what they do is give you a wash, a scrape, a floss and a polish and then they send you off.

This MPI is a joke and it should be seen as that. We will get on with the business of government.

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