Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister advise the House of any risks to achieving reform of our healthcare system?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for his question. I very much enjoyed spending time with him at his GP superclinic and talking to him about the healthcare needs of his community.

The member asks about risks to health reform. I am sitting across the table from the principal risk: the Leader of the Opposition, with his plans to wreck health reform in this nation. This is not a fever that has infected the whole of the Liberal Party, wrecking reforms that are in the national interest. Of course, Premier Barnett, in Western Australia, and I are not on the same page on health reform. That is well known. But I will give the Premier of Western Australia this—and it is certainly verified in the articles I have here: unlike the Leader of the Opposition, he does not seek to wreck health reform. He is very clear that he will do what he needs to do to facilitate health reform for those states that have agreed to it. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: have a look at this example.

Then, of course, we have signatures from premiers and chief ministers around the country, other than the Premier of Western Australia. They are signed up to health reform and they want health reform. We have signature after signature, page after page. Yet the Leader of the Opposition, despite this agreement, wants to rip it up and end health reform. In doing that he would be ripping up this health reform plan, leaving it in tatters so that we cannot deliver a better system of services, more doctors, more nurses, more hospital beds and more aged care beds to Australians who want them. He just wants to rip this up and throw it in the bin.

He is doing all of this because somehow, he says, he was taken by surprise by the fact that the GST arrangements that had been made between the federal government and the states meant that, depending on GST and health expenditure in each state, the percentage of GST subject to the new arrangements could vary from state to state. He was surprised by that. Why was he surprised? I am holding in my hand the COAG health agreement, which says on page 29 that ‘from 2014-15, when the proportion of dedicated GST is fixed, each state or territory share will be determined by the actual amounts in each state or territory’. Why would he have been surprised?

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: the subject of the question was the risks to health.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

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

The member for Moreton will sit there in silence, and then he will probably find out what the point of order is. The member for Hasluck has the call.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My point of order goes to relevance to the terminology of risk. It is about more than just the coalition. I want to know what the rest of the risks are.

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

The point of order goes to direct relevance. The Prime Minister is responding to the question.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hasluck for his acknowledgement that the coalition is a risk to health reform, but I say to him: do not pick up the Leader of the Opposition’s burden. I think it is the Leader of the Opposition who is the risk to health reform. The excuse he is trying to use is that he did not understand the GST arrangements. Well, here is the bill that actually specifies those GST arrangements—that has made sure that people have understood it. It has been in the parliament a couple of times, and the Leader of the Opposition has never bothered to read it or come to grips with it. I am holding in my hand another federal government publication that makes clear the GST arrangements and also makes clear the benefits of health reform. Australians around the nation would be asking themselves why the Leader of the Opposition does not want them to have more doctors, more hospital beds and more aged care beds. The truth is that it is because he has never seen a cutback to health or a reduction in health services that he did not want to support. He has a track record as a minister for health, and he is trying to continue that track record as the Leader of the Opposition. Do not wreck health reform. This health reform is important for the nation.