Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. What action is the government taking to provide better health and better hospitals for working families?

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

I thank the honourable member for Braddon for his question, because, having visited his electorate on a number of occasions, I know that one of the top priorities in that part of Tasmania is the proper delivery of health and hospital services to his community. What I find right across the country is that people are crying out for national leadership to improve the health and hospital services of the nation, so that working families can have confidence in the level of services delivered by their local health professionals.

That is why the government has put forward its plan for a National Health and Hospitals Network, one which is funded nationally, one which is run locally and, for the first time, one where the Australian government takes on the dominant funding responsibility for the public hospital system of Australia; the dominant funding responsibility for its recurrent costs; the dominant funding responsibility for its capital costs—that is, the building of new hospitals; the dominant funding responsibility for equipment costs—for example, operating theatres and the most expensive of the investigatory and diagnostic machinery that you see in modern hospitals today; and also, for the first time, the dominant responsibility for the teaching and training costs associated with hospitals as well.

This morning, together with the health minister, I met GPs in training and medical students at the annual conference of the General Practice Students Network. It was here in the Great Hall in Parliament House. It was a great opportunity to be able to talk for a while with those young medical graduates about their future careers, possibly as GPs, and what they are doing is benefiting from support provided by government at present. But, most critically, what they are concerned about is their futures, as well—whether there will be enough GP training places in the community. That is why a couple of days ago the government announced its new plan for a record investment in the expansion of GP and medical specialist training places right across Australia. We are investing in 6,000 additional training places for doctors—for GPs and specialists—right across Australia. We need to act in this area, since we have been advised that, with the shortage of doctors in the decade ahead, simply to maintain things as they are would require an additional 3,000 GPs, but if we are to improve the level of services then we have to do much better than that. That is why within the program I have just referred to we are investing in support of 5½ thousand new GP training places. This will cost the government some $632 million, but we believe that this is an important program to get on with.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

I notice that some of those opposite are interjecting already about the fact that this is a program for the future, as if for two years the government has been inactive on this matter. I would say to the honourable members interjecting that, over the course of the last two years, the government has already increased GP training places by 35 per cent. That is in our first two years in office. In our first two years in office we have increased the overall Australian government investment in the public hospital system by 50 per cent. That is some $64 billion. For the first time the Australian government is out there investing in the nation’s cancer related infrastructure, a $1 billion-plus investment, not just in the big cities but in integrated cancer care centres right across the nation as well. Those opposite interject with ‘What have you been doing for two years?’ I say: a lot more than the previous government ever did in 12 years.

When it comes to the future, we believe that properly funding a National Health and Hospitals Network is the right course of action for Australia. We need to ensure that we have a system which is properly funded nationally and that is properly run locally through local hospital networks, that we have sufficient hospital beds, that we have sufficient doctors and that we have sufficient nurses. You cannot do that if you simply stand to one side and say, ‘We just hope it gets fixed up in the morning,’ or ‘We’re gunna do something about it,’ on the eve of the next election, which is what a certain ‘gunna’-represented officer said he would do on the eve of the last election, having been health minister for four or five years.

I say to the Leader of the Opposition and to the parliament at large: the government has put forward a plan, a National Health and Hospitals Network for the future, funded nationally, run locally and building on the record investments we have already undertaken in health and hospitals in our first two years in office. That stands in stark contrast to someone who, as health minister of Australia, reached in and gouged $1 billion out of the public hospital system of Australia. They can run—

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask that you ask the Prime Minister to withdraw that deliberately misleading statement to the House. It is provocative and it causes disorderly responses.

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. There is no point of order and there is no action that can be taken by the chair.