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

for MRIs for men potentially with prostate cancer and new tests for cystic fibrosis. We have new cataract surgery items, which will have a major impact in many areas of rural and regional Australia. This is what we are actually doing. There is more funding in Medicare, more funding in hospitals—more funding right across health.

There is an additional $338 million for mental health services, including $100 million for support for older Australians, whether it's in residential care or in the community, for their mental health needs. There is funding for beyondblue for their extraordinary Way Back program, and I commend former Prime Minister Gillard for her work with the government and now with the states on that. This is a program to give people treatment at the very moment they are most likely to take their own lives. It's a cooperative program which we've embarked upon. Similarly, we're contributing $33 million to Lifeline. With the great Professor Patrick McGorry and other leaders such as Professor Kapur, Professor Helen Milroy and Professor Tracey Wade, from South Australia, who is an expert in eating disorders, we are putting together a $125 million Million Minds Mental Health initiative under the Medical Research Future Fund—the largest, longest, single investment in mental health research in Australian history.

Let us compare that. Let us compare that with our friends on the other side. When you look at what's happening in Queensland, you see the absolute truth. In Mackay, we're increasing funding by 30 per cent; Labor at the state level are decreasing funding in that region by two per cent—a 32 per cent difference. Townsville is an extraordinary example. In Townsville we see that we're increasing by 25 per cent, and it is a zero per cent change over the last three years, but I had a look at the figures for the ABF funding from Queensland to the Townsville area for the last full year. It's gone from $374 million to $346 million. So Queensland Labor have cut their own funding to their own hospitals in their own seat by $28 million. So there you go. That is an extraordinary thing about which they are absolutely silent. If they want to have a debate about facts, let's go for broke. Let's have a debate about facts.

But there is something that is even more significant than that: a vision for the Australian health system. What we saw on budget night was a vision for the Australian health system which covered our primary care and a-once-in-a-generation reform of our rural workforce system, and I am delighted to have at the table the assistant minister who was one of the architects of that system. What we see here are 3,000 new doctors and 3,000 new nurses for rural Australia with better opportunities for doctors, better opportunities for nurses and better outcomes for patients. That is a fundamental reform of profound significance and meaning.

In addition to all those Medicare items that I mentioned—for example, for mammograms, for prostate cancer, for cystic fibrosis and for cataract surgery—what we also see is an investment in new medicines. There is $2.4 billion, including for SPINRAZA, this extraordinary medicine to assist with spinal muscular atrophy for kids who would otherwise never have that opportunity; and for Kisqali for over 3,150 breast cancer patients who wouldn't have access to that medicine. And that compares—and this is the thing—with what Labor did when Labor was in office. They deliberately made a decision not to follow the advice of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee. They did that on the statement of the former minister, who said they could not list everything that the PBAC provided. We are very happy to provide those quotes. We guarantee that we will do that.

They left medicines for pulmonary conditions, asthma, endometriosis, IVF and schizophrenia on the table on the side and chose not to advance those listings at the time that it was progressed. And they made deliberate, conscious decisions. That is the difference. In the end, when it comes to health, we don't just pledge; we deliver each year, every year, record funding, hospitals, Medicare, health and mental health. (Time expired)

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