Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister and relates to the ongoing blame game in our health system. Is the Prime Minister aware that, on any one night in Australia, there are an estimated 1,684 people in public hospital beds who should be receiving aged care treatment? Prime Minister, isn’t it the case that the cost to our health system is more than half a billion dollars every year and that these costs are in fact increasing as time goes by? Prime Minister, when will you stop playing the blame game and take responsibility for the cost shift and blame shift which is affecting the care of older Australians?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In reply to the Leader of the Opposition, my assertion is that we are not playing the blame game. We seem to have had a new mantra in Australian politics in the last week, and that is: you are never allowed to say anything critical of state government because they are all Labor; it is perfectly in order to criticise the federal government. However, if the Leader of the Opposition does not believe me when I say that the Commonwealth and the states are cooperating appropriately, he might believe the person who said the following thing on 14 July 2006:

Prime Minister I think it’s fair to say that the meeting today, and even indeed the informal discussions at The Lodge last night, show cooperative federalism in action. And I agree with my colleague from Victoria, those who seek to denigrate this relationship don’t understand it. Cooperative federalism is producing results for Australia, and indeed this relationship between the States and the Commonwealth is probably the best in Australia’s history ...

Those were the words of Peter Beattie, the Premier of Queensland—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I worked with him. He is not a bad bloke to work with. Our politics may be different, but when the interests of Australians living in Queensland are involved he and I can work together in a very cooperative fashion. This is what he had to say:

On other issues, in terms of health, I’m absolutely delighted with the Prime Minister’s offer to the States to provide additional doctors. It means an additional 150 training places in Queensland and I won’t go through the nurses and allied health professionals, but that is a significant advance for skilling Australians to actually look after Australians.

But he got even more lyrical as the press conference wore on:

... we have cooperative federalism, we put party politics aside and work in the interest of Australia. For those who seek to undermine it, I just simply say look at the outcomes today and anyone with half a brain will fully support it.

Let me say to the Leader of the Opposition: have half a brain; stop undermining this cooperative federalism.