Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Grey, who's been a passionate advocate of rural mental health. He's fought hard for the new Whyalla headspace, which he recently announced and which is shortly about to open. That is in addition to other regional headspaces around the country, including in Katherine, Melton, Grafton and so many other areas. We've seen record bulk-billing rates across Australia of 85.9 per cent, but they are even higher, at 86.4 per cent, across his electorate. South Australian hospitals have also seen, on average, a 26 per cent increase in Commonwealth funding over the course of this government's time in office compared to six per cent from the state Labor government. In his electorate, the figure is even higher. There has been a 31½ per cent increase in Commonwealth hospital funding. So, he's been a great advocate for rural mental health and rural hospital and bulk-billing services—and he's been able to deliver.

However, the member for Grey asked whether or not there are any alternatives. There are in South Australia. What we have seen in South Australia is a government, at the state level, which has been utterly incapable of managing its own hospital service. We've seen the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which was meant to be a great service to the people, become, instead, a catastrophic Taj Mahal. Not even the member for Grayndler would pretend that he built that one! How do we know that? Because this was going to be a $1.7 billion building. It's now over $2.3 billion. That's a $640 million cost blowout. It was 17 months late. It's been a failure on many, many fronts.

We saw yesterday that not only could the South Australian government not keep the lights on at the Flinders Medical Centre, with catastrophic results for the patients involved, not only could they not keep the lights on at the Royal Adelaide Hospital; now we have the example that, while they pledged two years ago to deliver mental health care and spaces within the Royal Adelaide Hospital, last week there was a scandal where a prisoner was shackled to an emergency department bed for 85 hours—85 hours in a brand new public hospital which did not have the beds that they promised repeatedly they would deliver. This is catastrophic hospital mismanagement.

At the same time, we have seen Premier Weatherill walk away from a $1½ billion increase in hospital funding in order to try and make some petty political point on the eve of the South Australian election instead of standing up for patients. Let's be clear: they can't keep the lights on; they couldn't build the hospital on time; they can't keep the patients safe. That is Labor's approach to hospitals. In the end, they are 'medi-frauds' and they are hospital frauds, whether it's at a federal or state level.

See this speech in context