Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister update the House on the challenges facing the Australian health system? What action has the government already taken and why is there a need for further reforms?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question because, as we know in this place, there are huge challenges on the Australian health and hospital system. If we look at what is happening with the ageing of our population and the fact that we are going to have a huge increase in the expenditure which will be necessary on those over 65 in the future, we face fundamental challenges for how we deal with this as a nation going forward.

One of the reports produced recently by the government predicts a sevenfold increase in overall expenditure on health for those over the age of 65. Furthermore, those over the age of 65 will increase as a proportion of our total population from something like 13 per cent of our population today to something like 23 or 24 per cent of our population by mid-century. That is the challenge. Furthermore, it is a challenge for budgets, both federal and state. What we have seen is the increased outlays by state governments on health averaging some 11 per cent across the nation in recent years but their own-source revenue rising by only four per cent over that same period of time, producing a widening fiscal gap between the demands on the system and the states’ capacity to fund the expansion of the hospital system as is necessary.

The third part of what I would say in response to the honourable member’s question is that, when you look specifically at the action the government has taken so far, you will see we are seeking to lay the foundations for the future expansion of our health and hospital system. Firstly, what we have done in just two years in office, through the Minister for Health and Ageing, is to increase the funding by the Australian government to the public hospital system by 50 per cent. That stands in contrast to the $1 billion ripped out of that system by the Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister for four years. Secondly, the Australian government has increased the number of GP training places by 35 per cent, whereas the Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister for four years froze the number of GP training places. Thirdly, this government has increased the number of nurse training places. The Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister did nothing to address what was then described as a shortfall of 6,000 nurses in the system. Fourthly, this government has made a direct investment of $ ¾ billion into the direct services provided by our emergency departments. That contrasts with a zero direct investment of dollars by the Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister. No. 5: we have invested some $600 million already directly into elective surgery, providing an additional 60,000 elective surgery procedures across the country, which stands in contrast to a zero investment by the Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister. We are rolling out 36 GP superclinics across the nation. Eight are now either fully or partially operational and the remainder have contracts signed. That contrasts with zero GP superclinics rolled out by those opposite.

That is what we have been doing so far, but it all comes back to how we fund and finance this for the future. The decision by those opposite to continue to block the government’s measures and announced policy on PHI goes to the heart of our ability to provide finance for our hospital system for the future. Some $2 billion across the forward estimates lies caught up in an arrangement in the Senate whereby the Leader of the Opposition is standing by the principle that the least salaried Australians should subsidise the private health insurance costs of someone on $200,000 and $300,000 salary a year, like the Leader of the Opposition and me—that someone on $30,000 a year should be cross-subsidising the private health insurance premium rebate for someone on $200,000 to $300,000 a year. That is what is at stake here because it is the working people of this country who present to accident and emergency and who queue up at public hospitals in order to be on elective surgery waiting lists who need that investment. That is why health and hospital reform for the future is absolutely necessary. We have made a strong start through the existing allocation of $64 billion to the system under the Minister for Health and Ageing.

Those opposite, it seems, have one solution for the ageing of our population. I see what the Leader of the Opposition has had to say about that again in recent days: to increase the age pension to 70. That is his response to the ageing of the population—make people work to the age of 70. In contrast, we have brought about the single largest reform to the age pension system in the country’s history. On top of that, we have invested $64 billion into the public hospital system of the nation, and this government intends to get on with the business of building better health and better hospitals for the future.