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

My question is to the Prime Minister. How can the Prime Minister say that the efficient casemix price of public hospital procedures will be set by an independent body under his health reform policy while also maintaining that government funding for public hospitals will not need to increase over the forward estimates period? How can the Australian people trust the government to fix public hospitals when the government cannot successfully manage to give away pink batts for free?

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

It is pretty interesting when the Leader of the Opposition asks a question about health and demonstrates that he does not understand the first thing about casemix funding. He does not understand the first thing about activity based funding. I would have thought that, having been the Minister for Health and Ageing for four or five years, he would demonstrate an elementary level of understanding. I will say to the Leader of the Opposition that why we are bringing about fundamental reform to the health and hospital system is as follows. We will not in the future be providing blank cheques as he did to state and territory governments in the hope that something might happen in the actual delivery of services on the ground. We are proposing to introduce, by contrast, activity based funding which enables the government to directly pay local hospital networks for the actual hospital services that they deliver.

This is a reform which working families want on the ground because it enables them to respond to this certainty of budgetary supply in order to increase the hospital services delivered on the ground. The Australian people have been saying to the government that they do not have enough hospital beds, doctors or nurses and that they are sick and tired of the waste, duplication and overlap that currently characterises our system. One of the reasons we have this waste, duplication and overlap—something which the Leader of the Opposition, if he were faintly interested in reform, would have done something about—

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services, Health and Wellbeing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question was about the independent umpire and the hospital funding over the forward estimates. The Prime Minister has not addressed this in his answer.

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

The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

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

It is always good to hear from the member for Boothby and we hope to see him back on the front bench before long—once he has a reconciliation meeting with the Leader of the Opposition. I say in response to the Leader of the Opposition’s question about casemix funding that we are about providing funding to local hospital networks which actually provides support for the hospital services delivered on the ground. We will not support in the future the system he backed for five years which provided a blank cheque, a block grant, to state and territory health bureaucracies to spend wherever—maybe not even on health. This is the fundamental nature of the reform that we are bringing about.

The second point I would make to the Leader of the Opposition is that if he were really interested in health reform we might have heard just an element of his alternative policy when he addressed the AMA last night. Instead, we had one exercise—

Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services, Health and Wellbeing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: it is the same point of order on relevance—casemix, independent umpire, public hospitals—

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

The Prime Minister is aware of his responsibilities to be relevant to the question. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

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

The response we have had from the medical profession, from nurses right across the country, has been to get behind this reform for the nation because they want more resources to go to front-line health and hospital services, not into bureaucracies in state capitals across the country. That is what the people of Australia are calling out for.

In response to the member for Boothby’s intervention, coming on top of the Leader of the Opposition’s question, can I say as follows: (1) bring in activity based funding and (2) make sure that the Australian government takes on its shoulders, for the first time in Australia’s history, the burden of becoming the dominant funder of the public hospital system of Australia. We are for the first time in our history becoming the dominant funder of the capital needs of Australia’s public hospital system, for the first time becoming the dominant funder of the equipment needs of Australia’s public hospital system and for the first time becoming the dominant funder of the research and teaching needs of the public hospital system of Australia.

People want an end to business as usual. The Leader of the Opposition, who had five years as health minister, is content with the status quo. He is content with not changing a thing. He thinks the system is just good enough. I say to the Leader of the Opposition and to the member for Boothby: (1) we take on this reform to deliver money directly to the coalface, (2) we take on our shoulders the burden of long-term growth in the system and (3) as the minister for health and others have indicated, we have further say on additional growth in the system in the future as well. This is in stark contrast to a Leader of the Opposition who ripped $1 billion out of the public hospital system of Australia and stands here and pretends that he never, ever did it.