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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his 2007 promise to fix public hospitals by 30 June last year or, if he did not, to take them over from the states. Why has this promise not been kept? If the Prime Minister cannot keep promises from 2007 why should anyone believe the promises he makes in 2010?

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

I welcome the beginning of the health and hospitals debate, because the member who was just on his feet was the man who as health minister for four years ripped $1 billion out of Australia’s public hospitals. We have before us now the man who as health minister for four years froze GP training places. We have before us at the moment the man who as health minister did nothing about the undersupply of nurses to the Australian health and hospital system.

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

Wrong.

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

To all of those he says, ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong.’ The bottom line is we now have a health and hospitals debate, and I welcome each day of it from this day forward.

The Leader of the Opposition was asked about this this morning. He put forward his strategy for the future on health and hospitals when he said, ‘I think many of them out there are wishing for the good old days.’ That is the pre-2007 days. That line was just referred to by the member for Melbourne. If the Leader of the Opposition has learned absolutely nothing about the state of our hospital system since exiting as health minister and the change in government, he has had his head buried in the sand.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. The Prime Minister has not attempted to answer the question of why he has broken his election promise. He has been going for two minutes; it is about time—

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

The member for Casey will resume his seat. The Prime Minister knows his responsibility to be relevant to the question.

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

As I said before, I welcome the debate. I welcome what we have done in the two years that we have been in office and those opposite, I am sure, will welcome the reform plan we will unroll to the Australian public this year.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Those opposite interject as though health and hospitals was their top priority for 12 years in office. Those 12 years in office saw them rip $1 billion out of the hospital system when the honourable member was the health minister. In the period that we have been in government, with the health minister at the helm, we have increased overall funding to the hospital system by 50 per cent. That is what we have done. We have also increased the training of GPs and nurses. We have invested significantly in cancer treatment and research. This is what we have done in two short years. As for the future plan which will be put to the states very soon, I say to those opposite that we will seek to achieve a compromise with the states on one thing.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The House will come to order.

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

Those opposite seemed to relish the idea of achieving any kind of compromise with the states. The compromise that we have sought with the states is in one area—that is, bringing down—

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Anthony Smith interjecting

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

The member for Casey is warned.

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

the waiting times for elective surgery by pooling our funding to make a difference on the ground. Those opposite found that sort of compromise arrangement with the states for the last two years unacceptable. They find those sorts of compromises and cooperative arrangements for the future unacceptable. We have done it for elective surgery and we are doing it with emergency departments, with practical measures on the ground. But I say very clearly to this House: if the states and territories do not accept this year the reform proposals for the future, the government will take this matter to the Australian people as we have previously committed to doing.

I also say to those opposite, on the question of consistency—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! A question has been asked, the—

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Lindsay interjecting

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

The member for Herbert is warned. The Prime Minister is responding to the question. The Prime Minister has the call.

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

On the question of the Commonwealth’s role in relation to health and hospitals, and our approach, which is a reform document for the nation to examine, there have been, firstly and secondly, six months of consultations by the health minister and myself with more than 100 hospitals across Australia—some of which the former health minister himself, when he was the health minister, never visited—and, thirdly, there is a decision-making framework with the states which will come to its conclusion very soon. I am very confident that those opposite, when they see what reform plan we have for the nation, will have a very stark choice indeed.

And let us remember, on the question of Commonwealth takeover, that there was a certain Leader of the Opposition, who was previously a health minister, who when asked about this question several years ago said that only one level of government should run the hospitals. He was advocating, then, a Commonwealth takeover of the hospitals. Then, when he becomes Leader of the Opposition, he backs away from it at a million miles an hour. It is a bit like last year backing the emissions trading scheme as Leader of the Opposition and this year saying that the emissions trading scheme is unacceptable. A few years ago he was backing a Commonwealth takeover of the hospital system; when he becomes Leader of the Opposition he pretends that that had never been uttered.

The government welcomes health and hospital reform. We have done more in two years than you did in 12 and the reform plan will be for you to back or oppose when the states and territories have reached their own decision in the immediate future.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Can the minister update the House on the government’s support for public hospitals and any alternative policies?

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

I welcome this opportunity and thank the member for Moreton for this question because he, as a member with very high demands in his electorate from the health system, will be very interested to be able to compare and contrast the record of the government’s investments in public hospitals with the record of the Leader of the Opposition as a former health minister who cannot pretend that he was not intimately involved in every decision and every legacy left by the Howard government in our health system. We have spent the last two years rebuilding, block by block, after not just four years of this Leader of the Opposition being the health minister but also 12 years of a Howard government which neglected the system.

I can understand why the public responds very badly when they are reminded of Mr Abbott’s time as the health minister because one of the things that people remember most about Mr Abbott is that he pulled a billion dollars out of our public hospitals and then spent the next four years blaming the states for everything that went wrong. Compare and contrast ripping a billion dollars out of our hospitals to putting hundreds of millions of dollars into elective surgery and into emergency departments—billions of dollars into our public hospitals. This compare and contrast is a very easy thing to do.

Look at another thing that the Leader of the Opposition oversaw when he was the health minister: for all of the time that the Leader of the Opposition was the health minister the Howard government had a cap on the training places for GPs. This was despite the fact that 60 per cent of the country had a shortage of GPs. For four years as the health minister, Mr Abbott simply looked the other way and tried to pretend this was somebody else’s problem. We have already started to undo the damage caused by those years of neglect. We have increased the number of GP training places by 35 per cent. I am sure the public will want even more than that. We are taking action for things that the Leader of the Opposition neglected year after year after year.

Actually, it reminded me very much of a very familiar Monty Python script where it was fine to say that we have just cut off an arm as we rip a billion dollars out of our hospitals and we have cut off a leg as we have capped our GP training places, and the Leader of the Opposition just kept saying: ‘It’s only a flesh wound. Everything’s going to be fine; it’s just a flesh wound.’

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

Mr Abbott interjecting

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

It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition is asking about GP superclinics but the health spokesperson has not asked a question about GP superclinics. That is probably because one has opened in his electorate. Following a $2½ million dollar investment by our government in the member for Dickson’s seat, the Strathpine GP superclinic opened two weeks ago and is providing services to the community that otherwise turns up at Redcliffe, Caboolture and Prince Charles hospitals, where the emergency department presentations have gone up exponentially—at one of those hospitals by more than 20 per cent. In the member for Dickson’s electorate there is now a service that runs all day Saturday, all day Sunday and until seven o’clock every night during the week. The reason the shadow minister has been completely silent about it is that he did not even have the decency to turn up and congratulate them for providing these services to the community. The Leader of the Opposition is a risk. He has pulled money out of health. If he is elected, he will pull money out of health again, as his finance spokesperson has already made clear, and the public cannot afford that risk.