Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today's matter of public importance is yet another example of an attempt by those opposite to mislead the Australian public on health care. But the figures speak for themselves. The Turnbull government's policies are having a real and tangible impact on the cost and accessibility of health care for each and every Australian.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank the Minister for Health for his incredible commitment and hard work in this area, which is making a positive difference for the residents of my electorate of Boothby and for all South Australians—for my home state of South Australia. Under the Turnbull government, we have achieved record bulk-billing rates by GPs of 85.9 per cent. This means that residents in my electorate of Boothby can visit their doctor without any out-of-pocket costs. This is thanks to the introduction of an additional 22,000 GP services in my electorate alone. In addition, the coalition government has added more than 1,500 new and amended medicines, worth $7.5 billion, to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which means greater access to medicines for those who need them most.

We are tackling serious and common health problems in our society. We recognise that one in five Australians experience mental health problems each year, and so we are increasing mental health funding to around $4.3 billion this year. We have also committed more than $685 million over four years to reduce the impact of drug and alcohol abuse, which, unfortunately, has reached epidemic levels in some areas of my home state of South Australia.

Federal funding for public hospital services under the coalition has increased from $13.8 billion in 2013-14, at the end of the failed Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years, to a record $22.7 billion in the years 2020-21 under the Turnbull government. This is a 64 per cent increase in funding. This means more doctors, more nurses, more surgeries and less wait times in hospitals across Australia, but particularly in my electorate of Boothby, at Flinders Medical Centre, which is in Bedford Park in the heart of my electorate.

Just last week, the Minister for Health announced record funding for hospital services at COAG. The minister committed to providing an additional $30 billion for public hospitals, which will provide almost $128 billion over the five years from 2020. But apparently this wasn't enough for the Premier of South Australia. So I just want to touch on what the Weatherill state Labor government has done, in contrast to the Turnbull government.

The Weatherill Labor government in South Australia cut funding to the health budget. They cut funding in South Australia by $7.4 million for our hospitals between 2015-16 and 2016-17, and they cut $20 million of funding for hospitals between 2014 and 2016.

We know where some of these cuts came from—and I know all too well, because they shut down the repat hospital in my electorate. This iconic hospital, which was purpose-built for our returned service men and women, which has been a wonderful community hospital as well for so many of my residents and their families, has been shut down by the Weatherill Labor government. It is truly one of the most disgraceful decisions the Weatherill Labor government has made, and it has contributed to the loss of 160 hospital beds in southern Adelaide. This affects each and every one of my residents in Boothby and their families.

In contrast, the coalition government is not just funding bulk-billing and the PBS and hospitals and mental health services; we are also funding medical research and treatment. We're funding the Southern Hemisphere's first proton therapy research centre, with cutting-edge cancer treatment that has the ability to deliver precise radiation to destroy tumour targets and save organs. We're funding 17 separate grants and scholarships worth $21 million in my electorate of Boothby for medical research to address key national health priorities, such as the devastating eye disease glaucoma which affects more than 300,000 Australians.

I'm very proud to have worked with the Minister for Health and the member for Forrest, in Canberra, to recognise and respond to the challenges faced by the one in 10 women who suffer from endometriosis. It's a terrible disease that for too long women have suffered from in silence, and I'm so proud that we're developing a national action plan and funding research into this. It's policies like these that make a real difference to peoples' lives—policies that this government is funding and delivering. (Time expired)

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