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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the AMA’s Public Hospital Report Card 2009, which found that the Prime Minister’s public hospital system is getting worse under his watch. I refer the Prime Minister also to his pre-election pledge that, ‘The buck stops with me on health.’ Will the Prime Minister confirm that waiting times for elective surgery are blowing out and patients are waiting longer for emergency department care and hospital beds? Prime Minister, isn’t this just another Labor broken promise?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Dickson, now that he has returned to his seat—in both senses—for the question. He raises a question about public hospitals. He raises a question about the AMA report. Obviously the member for Dickson did not see my comments at the time. I said, in response to the AMA report, that they had basically got it right—that is, there is a huge problem in the nation’s public hospital system. Let us be up-front about it. Secondly, let us also talk about the fact that there is a problem with elective surgery waiting lists and there is a problem in the time that elapses before people receive attention at accident and emergency with respect to what are defined as clinically acceptable times. In each and every one of the consultations that the health minister and I have been participating in around the country, nearly 20 of which I have been in myself and about 70 or 80 of which have involved the minister and others, we have given a standard presentation on the fact that the waiting time for accident and emergency has not changed—based on our data—since the early part of this decade and that it is unacceptably high.

The second thing we have said, when it comes to the time for elective surgery, is that the waiting time is unacceptably high as well. It is a standard part of our presentation and it is consistent with the data that is contained within the Bennett commission report. If the honourable member is seeking to infer somehow that we do not recognise there is a problem, can I say that he has not been studying what I or others have been saying in the public debate on this.

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

When will you fix it?

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

The member for Dickson has asked his question.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is one of solutions. Let us turn to solutions and how those opposite used their 12 years to solve the problem. In 2003 the Liberals ripped $1 billion from the public hospitals. That was solution No. 1. Solution No. 2: the Liberals left 2,300 older Australians languishing in hospital beds every night. Thirdly, under the Liberals the health workforce shortage affected 60 per cent of Australians. Fourthly, they capped GP training places at 600 per year.

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

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order going to relevance. The Prime Minister was asked about his pre-election health pledge, not about other opinions or views. When is he going to fix—

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

Order! The member for Dickson will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will respond to the question.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, the honourable member asked me a question about the AMA report into the state of the nation’s hospitals. The state of the nation’s hospitals as it exists did not mysteriously appear as a consequence of what has happened in the previous six months, 12 months or 18 months. In fact, it is the product of long-term non-investment in the public hospital system of Australia by the previous government. Let us be up-front about that. What do they have to say about the 650,000 Australians who were left on public dental care waiting lists as a result of the them scrapping the Commonwealth dental care program? That is exactly what we inherited: underfunding for the hospitals, money being ripped out, older Australians being left to languish in hospitals and preventing others from properly occupying those hospital beds for the purposes of elective surgery and other procedures, capping of the number of GP training places and 650,000 Australians on public dental waiting lists. They have the audacity to stand here in this parliament and claim that they have no responsibility for the state of the nation’s hospitals, as identified in the AMA report—which the honourable member just referred to. Let us just get real about this debate and get real about what has been inherited here, as a set of historical problems.

The honourable member asks what we are doing about these challenges. I draw his attention to the following. In November the health minister announced a $64 billion health and hospitals agreement, a 50 per cent increase on the Liberals’ last healthcare agreement. That is what we are doing. Secondly, for the first time, we are investing $750 million to help take pressure off emergency departments. I ask this of the member for Dickson: how much did the previous government invest directly in seeking to take pressure off emergency departments? Nothing, not a dollar. How much did they invest when it came to bringing down elective surgery waiting times? Nothing. We have invested some $600 million. How much did they invest in subacute care beds? The answer is that I do not know, but we are investing $500 million. These are the practical measures that we have put into place so far, quite apart from the investment in GP superclinics—a $275 million investment—and quite apart from our increased attention to overall health workforce training requirements. That is simply stage 1 of what we have sought to do in the two years that we have been in office.

We have also outlined through the Bennett commission of review what constitutes two overall strategic options for the long-term future. The time frame for considering those is as I outlined to the House yesterday in response to the honourable member’s question. If he is going to ask questions about health and hospitals, let him not simply airbrush away the impact of 12 years of simple ignorance, non-attendance and non-investment in the hospital system of Australia. If you are going to raise questions about the hospital system, tell us what you have done in the past and tell us what you will do in the future. We have a plan to deal with both.