House debates

Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Questions without Notice

Budget

2:59 pm

Photo of Sussan LeySussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

We have an important women's health initiative. We are building infrastructure to train new doctors in the bush, because access to GPs is vital for rural and regional Australians. We are creating a national registry for breast and cardiac devices. They are just some of the highlights.

But, against that background, I remind the House of our ongoing solid policy development in health, all of it designed with patients at the centre. I have a saying that the further away the dollar falls from the patient the less effective it is, and that is what our policy does, whether it be our $2.9 billion funding for hospitals—received with great pleasure by every single state health minister—building in reform around safety, quality and reduced avoidable hospital admissions; the landmark Medical Research Future Fund; our mental health reforms that really stop people falling through the cracks; access to medicines and new breakthrough drugs; or access to medicinal cannabis and the important reforms to come for the supply and cultivation of something that will help patients in distress.

Against that background, we are in the dying days of the 44th Parliament, and we do not have a single health policy from Labor—not a single health policy. We have not heard one. We started last year with a big year of new ideas—

Mr Dreyfus interjecting

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