Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is directed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister inform the House how the federal government is improving cancer services across regional Australia? How has the New South Wales government responded to this federal initiative, particularly in my electorate of Page? Are there any alternative policies, and what is the government’s response?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Howard government, I say in response to the member for Page, certainly is committed to delivering better cancer services to people in country Australia. Since 2001 we have committed $160 million to this end, and thanks to this funding there are now new or expanded radiation oncology services operational or about to commence in Toowoomba, Geelong, Traralgon, Bendigo, Ballarat and Perth.

It will be of particular interest to the member for Page that in June 2004 the Howard government offered $8 million to the New South Wales government towards the construction of two linear accelerators at Lismore Base Hospital. New South Wales accepted this money and said that detailed planning would be done in 2006 and construction would commence no later than July of this year. When absolutely nothing whatsoever had happened at the end of last year, I wrote to the New South Wales government reiterating that the federal money remained available but demanding to know when these services would begin. I regret to inform the House that it now seems radiation oncology services at Lismore Base Hospital will not start until late 2009 at the earliest. This is a disgrace.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is giggling while the cancer patients of northern New South Wales are forced to travel long distances for services or else not get the services. Cancer patients in northern New South Wales deserve better than this kind of giggling from members opposite. Either people will not get services or they will die because of a broken promise that was made by Premier Iemma when he was the New South Wales health minister back in 2004. This is a total betrayal of the people of New South Wales—the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is still giggling—by the Iemma government, which on this matter, as on so many others, has been guilty of procrastination, incompetence and deceit. To put it in the vernacular, the Iemma government could not organise a booze-up in a brewery, but with typical born-to-rule Labor arrogance it now thinks that it can coast to victory on Saturday.

Let me remind the House that today in Penrith the Leader of the Opposition was with Premier Iemma, his new political mentor. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to perform some immediate service for the people of New South Wales and if he wants to demonstrate that he is a potential leader of this country and not just a patsy for the premiers, he will get on the phone this afternoon and say to Morris Iemma: ‘Honour that commitment. Start building that radiation oncology centre in Lismore now.’

To assist the Leader of the Opposition in making that phone call, I table correspondence between the Australian and New South Wales governments and also a newspaper interview from December 1994 in which the Leader of the Opposition said of himself:

I don’t believe I have the goods to be Prime Minister.

I am giving him a chance to prove that that was just false modesty. I say to him: prove you have the guts to be the leader; get on the phone to Premier Iemma this afternoon.