Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Dickson proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The failure of the Government to fix the health system.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today in question time we saw another opportunity for the Prime Minister to recommit to his election promise and he failed to do it. It has been six weeks now since the deadline has come and gone, the deadline that the Prime Minister set himself back in the election campaign, to fix public hospitals by mid-2009 or he would seek to take financial control of those hospitals. Every Australian heard this Prime Minister say at the last election that he would end the blame game, that on health the buck would stop with him and that he had a solution to fix public hospitals or, if he could not have the hospitals fixed under the control of the state Labor governments, he would seek to take them over.

Over the last 18 months since this government has been elected nothing has happened under this government to improve our health system. In fact, at every turn, decisions that Kevin Rudd has taken have made worse the outcomes across hospitals and the health system around the country. This is a government which has, by way of decisions on private health insurance, those relating to IVF and those relating to GP super clinics, only added pressure to, not taken pressure away from, public hospitals—and for that it should be condemned. This is a government which promised so much but has delivered so little.

It is certainly the case that this government led people to believe that it had a plan. It was the Prime Minister who as far back as about two years ago promised, by way of a speech to a health summit in New South Wales, that he had a plan at that time, two years ago, to fix hospitals. That is how far back this Prime Minister had the Australian people believing that, if elected into government, he was going to carry out this plan as promised. It certainly has been an appalling record when you look at some of the examples that I want to outline as part of this debate today.

The time frame was not set by the opposition; it was set by the government. The Prime Minister made that promise knowing how difficult the task would be, how difficult trying to undo the health system trashing that had taken place by state Labor governments over the last 10 years would be, but nonetheless he made that commitment. Since that time, by driving people out of private health insurance, by making sure that he was pouring more Commonwealth taxpayers’ money into the black hole that is the state Labor governments, he has condemned us to failure in the next 10 years that we have seen over the last 10 years.

But this was a promise that we knew from day one was going to be broken. We knew this promise to fix public hospitals was at risk when that wording was removed from the Prime Minister’s website only a few months ago. It was replaced with ‘improve’, which gave way to ‘assess’. So the signals were there, but Australians chose to believe that the Prime Minister would be true to his word—as of course they should. They gave this Prime Minister the benefit of the doubt. They did not believe that Kevin Rudd was just another Labor premier; they believed that he was going to end the blame game, that he was going to change the system and deliver health outcomes which would be of benefit to this nation’s hospitals and to all of the doctors and nurses—who are so passionate about the health system and who crave changes, just like Australian patients. They were hoping that Kevin Rudd was not just going to break into more state premier speak. But, of course, the opposite has been shown to be the case.

Let us assess just what this government has done. The government and ministers can spin all the stories they like about the supposed wonderful things that they have done in health, but the truth is that, rather than fix hospitals, the Prime Minister has made them worse. And the truth in health is there for all to see in the streets of towns not very far from where we are today. Let me take the Australian people to the streets of Cootamundra, where hundreds of people are protesting this afternoon about the state of health under Kevin Rudd and his state Labor mates. They are protesting about the bleak future of their local hospital. Two weeks ago the Greater Southern Area Health Service in New South Wales told doctors at Cootamundra that their funding would be slashed this financial year—slashed by more than $600,000 from the budget of last year. Cootamundra has a skilled medical staff. It is a town that has two obstetricians, two general surgeons and other qualified staff. But the disastrous decision by Labor could rob this community of that expertise.

Under Rudd Labor, those doctors have been told that they will have to slash the number of medical procedures that they carry out this financial year by more than half. If this decision holds, three of these doctors have indicated they will have to leave the town so that they can practise somewhere where they can keep their skills current. The people of Cootamundra believe that this is simply the thin edge of the wedge and that, with surgery cuts, admissions will fall and, if admissions fall, the hospital may well close. That is how this Rudd government has gone about fixing public hospitals over the last 18 months.

It is ironic that earlier this year the health minister was actually in Cootamundra to open a primary health centre. It was, she said, a blueprint for cooperation between community, private investors and input from government. You can almost hear the sound of the sincerity. One wonders how the people of Cootamundra consider the input from this government this afternoon. Cootamundra is not alone. Apparently a secret government report is calling for emergency surgery at Mount Druitt Hospital in Western Sydney also to be scrapped. The situation at Blacktown Hospital in Sydney’s west is so bad that even a state Labor MP is saying that lives will be lost.

I also wonder whether the young teenager from Dubbo thinks that Mr Rudd has fixed health. She badly injured her thumb recently—it was virtually torn off. She was rushed to Dubbo Base Hospital where doctors decided she had to be flown to Sydney where specialist surgeons could save the thumb. Unfortunately for this girl, it did not happen. It did not happen because it took New South Wales Health 10 hours to get her from Dubbo to Sydney. She could have driven there in half the time. One needs to remember that this is the same hospital that earlier this year could not pay its basic bills: it could not pay for bandages, it could not pay for batteries for vital equipment and it certainly could not pay for food for patients. And that is how Kevin Rudd has fixed health over the last 18 months.

Then there is Townsville, and I turn to my colleague the member for Herbert. The Prime Minister has been in Far North Queensland in the last week. Hopefully, he heard the message about the failures of his Labor colleagues in Queensland, and I hope that he heard it loud and clear. Queensland Health does not believe that Australia’s largest regional hospital in Townsville has the need or the expertise to operate vital life-saving equipment.

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Turnour interjecting

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whilst this government carries on with silly, petty political interjections, people in Townsville—people around the country—are dying in public hospitals. So why don’t you refrain from interjecting and start to concern yourself with people who are dying in public hospitals. The member for Leichhardt is an absolute joke in his local community because people know that the Cairns Base Hospital, which they expected to be fixed, has actually got worse since he was elected. He is a disgrace and he represents the failure of Labor members across the country to fix hospitals.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member will withdraw.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What should I withdraw, Madam Deputy Speaker?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You will withdraw the unparliamentary remarks in respect of the member for Leichhardt, please, so we can continue.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I would be happy to oblige, but I am not aware of anything that I said that was unparliamentary. If you point me to it, I would be happy to withdraw it.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You referred to him as ‘a disgrace’. I think you will find that, in the context, that is unparliamentary.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw. If incompetent or impotent is more applicable, then I apply that. So we have swine flu intensive care wards in North Queensland. A flu victim was recently flown to Sydney for intensive care treatment because there was not space at the Townsville hospital. We know that a week before that, at great cost, two rescue helicopters were needed to ferry another flu victim 700 kilometres around North Queensland—from Atherton to Cairns to Townsville and finally to Mackay—before he could be admitted into an intensive care ward. This cost tens of thousands of dollars. There were no spare beds in the two major hospitals in Northern Australia—and that is how Kevin Rudd has fixed health. The litany of woe goes on state by state—and this is how Labor manages health.

The Australian people should understand that this Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of this Labor government, will deliver nothing different to that which state Labor has delivered in health over the last 10 years. The bigger problem in health at the moment, I say to the Australian people, is not the money that is going in; it is the way in which the money is being spent and managed. Under this Labor government we have seen over the last 18 months only worse outcomes, not better. Twenty months into the life of this government, the situation has got worse and it shows the potential to deteriorate further. It is this Prime Minister who less than two years ago made the promise that he had a plan to fix hospitals and who less than 18 months ago promised to fix the hospitals or take them over. This Prime Minister, on the back of the recent inquiry which sat for 16 months with 10 of the top medical practitioners and contributors in health around this country and which provided to the government 123 recommendations—he had made the same commitment 18 months or two years before that that he had a plan to fix hospitals—says that not only is he walking away from that key election promise but also now needs another six months to consult around the country, to visit 25 hospitals so that he can get photo opportunities and so that people can believe he is doing something, implementing a plan, when nothing has been adopted. All of those recommendations are sitting there and this government has not adopted one. So we are well and truly looking at another 12 to 18 months before this government can introduce the radical reform that it promised at the time of the last election.

A couple of weeks ago the Minister for Health and Ageing suggested that the government would not be able to implement the changes that it thought it could or that it thought were needed in health because of the way that it had spent the money in the cash splashes. This really goes to the core of the difficulty that this government has got. I suspect that the government would seek to take over hospitals if it had its way. What I suspect, though, is that because it has spent the money over the last 18 months, because it has plunged this nation into enormous debt, because this country is going to be saddled with millions and millions of dollars of interest repayments over the next 10, 20 or 30 years, it has lost its capacity to implement properly the change in health that it promised. I think the Australian public now understand what we have been talking about over the course of the last 18 months. It is why we spoke about caution when this government went into a spending spree. We spoke about caution because we knew there were serious asks of the Australian people and of the taxpayers of this country coming up—and health was one such area.

We need to get health right in this country, but we cannot do it if we continue down the same failed Labor path of the last 10 years. We cannot just have Commonwealth taxpayers’ money being tipped into Nathan Rees’s government or into Anna Bligh’s government, because we know that, regardless of the money that has been tipped in the last 12 months which the health minister will speak about in a moment, outcomes in our public hospitals have not improved. If the health minister comes to the dispatch box today and suggests to the Australian people that somehow the government have improved hospitals over the course of the last 18 months then people should hold the government in the contempt that they deserve to be held. The government will not improve public hospitals or, indeed, the health system until they make the substantial change that they have promised for two years. The Australian people know—commonsense tells them—that we cannot continue to operate with the management practices that we have got in public hospitals and in health sectors around the country. We need to introduce that reform so that the money that we are spending, the extra investment that we will make in future years, will enable better health outcomes for Australian patients.

We do not want to see young families with sick children waiting for eight or 10 hours in emergency departments around the country. We do not want to see older Australians dying on waiting lists. In some cases people are on waiting lists for up to 10 years because there are bad practices that continue to suck up all of the money that is being poured into health by the Commonwealth and state governments. By its every action over the last 18 months, this government has made outcomes in health worse than they were when this government took office in 2007. This government has driven people out of the private system and onto waiting lists in the public system. This government has made bad outcomes even worse in relation to our emergency departments around the country. That is what this government should be remembered for, and certainly the Australian on people are right to draw the conclusion that the Prime Minister is not serious about health. He is now talking about putting this off until the next election. He wants to turn this into a political advantage. We know that more than 4½ thousand people die every year because of inefficiencies in our health system, and this Prime Minister, for political advantage, wants to put off any decisions. He should be condemned— (Time expired)

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am always pleased when the member for Dickson gets an MPI and gives us an opportunity to talk about health. I think everybody across the country and probably everybody in the parliament agrees that our health system is at a tipping point and that there are problems that need to be fixed. Of course, I take issue with responsibility for the problems and with the causal links that the member for Dickson has made with some of the problems, but we agree that there are a range of problems in the system.

But after getting over my initial enthusiasm and excitement that the member for Dickson has an MPI on a topic which is very important for the community, I am frustrated that the member has spent 15 minutes listing every single problem and not one single solution—and he mostly does not even stay to hear the debate. Last time he went out to conduct an interview on alcopops. He wanted to hide the fact that he had to execute a very humiliating backflip. I suppose it is no surprise that today, the very day the alcopops matter is finally passed by the Senate, the member did not raise that in his 15-minute speech about health.

Let us get serious about this. We do not pretend it is easy; we do not pretend that the health system can be fixed immediately. We have invested in a range of measures, and we can spend all our time going through the range of investments we have made. But I challenge the member for Dickson to go out to Queanbeyan, in the electorate of the member for Eden-Monaro, where the GP superclinic is now contracted and underway, to ask people whether they want the GP superclinic and whether they think it is a bad idea. I challenge him to speak to the member for Herbert. He has used with glee the example of the Townsville Hospital, which is getting $250 million courtesy of the Rudd Labor government—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not one of them is open; not one has opened.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you would listen, you would know that I am now talking about the Townsville Hospital—and, last time I checked, it was open. There is $250 million going there. I would like the member for Dickson to ask the member for Herbert to come and say whether he would like us to pull that money out. To add to the frustration of having a 15-minute list of problems with not a single solution being put on the table by the Liberal Party, it takes a bit of cheek for the member for Dickson to have this mostly confected outrage about consulting with the community when we have committed to a GP superclinic in his electorate. We consulted in his electorate, but the member could not be bothered to come along to the consultation. The construction work has begun, but he could not be bothered to come to the opening. Obviously he is too embarrassed to turn up in his electorate. He holds the seat with a slender margin and he may not even run in that electorate in the future, so I think it is a bit rich for him to come in here and criticise us.

Let us get this absolutely straight. When the previous government were in power, we criticised them for blaming every problem in the health system on the state governments. Now that they are in opposition, every problem in the public hospitals is instantly our fault. Let us not be so simplistic about this. There are a range of problems in the health system. We can invest money, we can change programs and we can improve accountability—and I will in due course give you a list of some of the things that have improved. The member has the gall to stand here and say that every decision we have made has made public hospitals worse. Let us look at a few of the decisions. How does it make public hospitals worse to invest 50 per cent more money in the delivery of services through our public hospital systems? How does it make public hospitals worse to deliver 41,000 extra elective surgery procedures which would not have been provided if the Commonwealth did not give that money? How does it make public hospitals worse in the electorate of the member for Forde when our $700 million investment in emergency departments is putting $44 million into the emergency department there? How does it make public hospitals worse to continue to invest in elective surgery equipment and new theatres? How does it make matters worse at Calvary Hospital when there is a new elective surgery theatre and more people are now having their elective surgery done?

The member for Dickson is living in some sort of fairyland. He thinks we can wave a wand and everything will be fixed on day one. The truth is that the public understand how complex this debate is. Even when we go to hospitals that are having challenges—hospitals that are having difficulty handling swine flu cases, or hospitals like Royal North Shore Hospital, which has historically had problems—the clinicians, the nurses, the psychiatrists and the GPs who service the local area come to us time and time again and say: ‘We want to be part of this process. These are the things that we think are good in the Health Reform Commission recommendations and these are the things we think should be different. Thank you, Prime Minister, for coming and talking to us about this.’ I think it is just nonsense to pretend that these difficult problems do not merit consultation with the community, consultation with the clinicians, consultation with the nurses and consultation with the specialists who are delivering these services. I do not think people will take the member for Dickson seriously when he just stands up and lists the problems. In a particular instance, he has fundamentally misled the parliament. He said there is a protest in Cootamundra about the Rudd Labor government for a decision made by an area health service run by the New South Wales government.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Blame game!

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dickson cannot pretend, with his trite interjections about ‘blame game’, that he is not standing up and absolutely misleading the House, confecting and confusing two different issues. We want to work to fix those problems. If the member bothered to visit the primary care centre that was opened in Cootamundra—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I took offence to the words of the minister, and I ask that you ask her to withdraw them.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the assistance of the House, even though they are not actually unparliamentary, I am going to ask the minister to withdraw them, because we have such little time.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw and say that he tells a fundamental mistruth. The protest in Cootamundra has absolutely nothing to do with the Rudd government. It does not do him any credit—someone who has got some brains but does not like to use them—to stand up in here and constantly criticise but not actually come forward with any ideas.

I am proud of the work that our government is doing. It does not surprise me that the members that we see in the House are those who have benefited already in their electorates from the sorts of investments that we are making. Sure, we would like them to be delivered more quickly. Sure, we would like every patient to be able to have access immediately. But, if we look at the trajectory of what is happening with our population, health expenditure and the extra two million presentations in our emergency departments compared to a decade ago, of course it is going to take time to fix some of these things. But I do not hear the member for Page saying that she does not want the cancer services in Lismore or the breast care nurse—

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or the GP superclinic.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

or the GP superclinic, because these things will improve the situation in her electorate.

The member for Parkes is here, a member who has had significant problems in his local hospital in Dubbo—and we are not apologists for the states; we want those problems to be fixed—and he is lobbying me for a GP superclinic. So do not come in here as the shadow health spokesperson and say that nothing we are doing is delivering. I am sorry that you happened to be here for that, Member for Parkes—we take seriously the request that has been made; it is a very good proposal from Gunnedah—but, if your shadow health spokesperson says that everything we are doing is terrible, at the same time as all the members on the backbench are saying, ‘Can we please have one of these in our electorate; they’re so terrible that we really want one,’ no-one is going to believe him.

I think that is the fundamental problem for the member for Dickson: nobody believes his position on anything anymore. The alcopops debate has really been the peak of that. He was vehemently arguing against it week after week after week—‘We’re never going to support it; we won’t do it’—then had to execute that humiliating backdown and make an announcement that they would support it. He cannot bring himself to come in here now and say that it is a good idea.

He absolutely defends the strength of the seat of Dickson and how much he loves the area, and then the second that it gets to be a hard fight for him locally he starts to indicate that he is looking around to run in another seat. This is the person who, according to media reports, was reduced to tears when he thought that the Labor candidate had beaten him in the election. But there is no doubt that he has never shed a tear for Medicare. He has never shed a tear for anybody who cannot get access to public hospital services when they want them. He has never put his mind at all to what an alternative policy might look like. We see this with the CPRS. We see this with education. This is an opposition that is so obsessed with its internal leadership problems that it cannot put forward any sort of policy proposal. I think that is absolutely pathetic.

What I would like to do in the remaining time available is to talk about some of the communities that are benefiting from our investments—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about your election promise?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

which were also election promises. I see that the member for Makin is here. A GP superclinic has been announced and signed on to in his electorate, something that he is very pleased is going to be delivered.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many patients has it seen? Not even one patient—not one.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has the call.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member opposite is having so much fun showing his complete lack of understanding that investments in health take some time and that patients need to be seen. Patients are being seen at a number of sites, as he knows, including Darwin. I do not think he has bothered to go and visit the Palmerston—

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is that a superclinic?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed a superclinic.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Dutton interjecting

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not going to even answer these most ridiculous interjections.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dickson will desist from interjecting.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is just wrong but he cannot help himself.

What I really want to put to the member today—and maybe some of the other members in the debate might address some of these issues—is that we have to make choices now about how our health system will be sustainable and how we will fund some of the important reforms that the community rightly wants and expects. What we have seen the member opposite do—as he did with alcopops—is oppose any measure that has a health impact if it also has a budgetary impact. He opposed the private health insurance measure, a fair measure to make sure that those on the highest incomes get the least support and those on the lowest incomes get the most support. But they knocked that off, and that is $2 billion that will not be available in the health budget to spend on other worthy reforms. Then there are the safety net reforms, where we are saying we are not going to continue to line the pockets of specialists who are making outrageous sums of money—$2 million, $3 million, $4 million a year—from Medicare and the safety net. Now it looks like the Liberal Party might not keep the shadow Treasurer’s promise to pass all budget measures except the private health insurance measures. They have gone wobbly on that. That is another $450 million.

Just those two items are worth $2½ billion. I would like the Liberal Party to tell me what they are going to cut if they are going to oppose these sensible savings measures. I want the Liberal Party to stand up and say what they want to cut. Do you want us not to proceed with our regional cancer centres across the country? Do you want us not to proceed with the funding of Avastin for bowel cancer? Do you want us not to consider the next life-saving drug that comes out to be put on the PBS for young children? Do you want us not to invest in these important things? Perhaps the member does not want us to invest in the vaccine for swine flu. If you keep opposing savings that are sensible and targeted and require people who have more resources to contribute more, then we will not have the money to pay for these important extra investments.

I think everyone on this side of the House wants our investments to be targeted and wants to see the health system delivering more for people, and it cannot be done if we do not make sure we have the money to do it. We do not have the Liberal Party with any policies. We do not have them with any answers about the difficult choices they could make. We do have the member for Dickson on the record as saying that the one thing he wants to make sure we do not do is repeat in the next decade the mistakes his government made in the last decade. We are absolutely sure we are not going to do that, but to not do that we need to make sure we are investing more, we are requiring more accountability and we are targeting our spending to those who need it most. We do not make any apologies for investing in communities like Western Sydney, for investing in Westmead. I see the member for Parramatta is here. Westmead has another $4.1 million going into its medical assessment unit. We can see something similar for every member of the House. What have you ever done?

Debate interrupted.