Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Why is health workforce reform important and how does the government’s policy differ from past approaches?

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

I thank the member for Franklin for this question because she is aware that in Tasmania getting the right mix of doctors and nurses and skilled workforce is very important, so I know that she wants to have the answer to this question. The Prime Minister has mentioned already in question time today the $632 million package to train a record number of doctors and to grow a strong health workforce. Our plan, as he noted, is going to deliver more than 6,000 new doctors over the decade. Importantly—and I think all members of the House will be interested to know this—those new doctors will deliver around five million extra services to families across the country by 2013. That is five million extra services for families, particularly those with young children, and elderly Australians who rely very much on our GP services and would not necessarily be able to access those services without this investment being made by the government. This is going to relieve pressure on existing GPs and also relieve pressure on busy hospital emergency departments.

Yesterday was also a historic day for our nurses. Another critical part of our health workforce strategy has now fallen into place. The Senate finally passed legislation to boost the role of nurses and midwives and improve patient access to health care. We are working hard to build this sustainable health workforce into the future after a decade of neglect by the previous government and particularly the erratic then Minister for Health and Ageing. The Australian people clearly want to see this sort of change. A poll released today found that 76 per cent of voters agree with the Rudd government’s reforms to the health system to fund nationally and run locally.

The community, of course, clearly does not share the view of the Leader of the Opposition, who said yesterday that the health system was working pretty well back when he was the health minister. They do not think the good old days when GP training places were capped, or when 60 per cent of Australians struggled to see a doctor, were that good. Of course, those good old days were the days when public hospitals were reeling from a billion-dollar daylight robbery by the current Leader of the Opposition.

Interestingly, the member for Dickson actually does not believe that either. He told the Australian General Practice Network Conference in 2008:

… we made mistakes in Indigenous health, in areas like workforce planning and in hospital management.

So nobody except the shoot-from-the-hip opposition leader thinks that elective surgery waiting list queues are caused by nurses going to ACTU indoctrination classes, which was his view in 2007. I might just read that little gem to the House, because I think it does reflect the anti-nurse view that is dominant from the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow health spokesperson:

No wonder the elective surgery lists are blowing out so badly in New South Wales’ hospitals—it is because the nurses are all at ACTU indoctrination lessons.

What an offensive comment to make about our nurses.

If he does not have a solution to a problem he just makes it up. Nobody, not even the member for Dickson, thinks our nurses or doctors should be treated badly. He took great offence yesterday when the message came back from the Senate that we suggested that he was anti-nurse. But then, of course, he was on the record only days ago saying that he did not think doctors and nurses should spend all their time on Facebook. This is the person who wants to be the health minister of this country going around slagging off at nurses and doctors when he should be supporting the investments that we are making in the health system. The opposition just cannot bring themselves to actually support our nurses, despite the opportunity yesterday to put their support on the record.

Not all of us share the nostalgia of days gone by. The opposition leader thinks that the days of those doctor and nurse shortages or of cutting funding for hospitals were days of plenty. We just do not agree with him. But I do know that the Leader of the Opposition likes to push things to the extreme—whether it is on his bike, whether it is in the outback or whether it is the boundaries of good taste—but his claims to have a credible health record are really just pushing the limits of credibility way too far.