David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. I refer the minister to the Port Macquarie GP superclinic in my electorate that was promised over three years ago, is yet to open and has not yet seen a single patient. How have the delays to this clinic affected the delivery of health in my electorate of Lyne?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Before the minister begins, we will have silence in the House.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate Dr Gillespie, the member for Lyne, for a lifetime of service to medicine and patients in his local community. He is very keen to see additional health services delivered into the electorate of Lyne, but, of course, it is made more difficult because Labor wasted billions of dollars. They set up what they claimed at the time to be the signature health policy of the Rudd-Gillard years—the so-called GP superclinics. That saw $650 million of borrowed money going into a program, including this one at Port Macquarie, but the problem is that not many patients have been seen.

I thought we were running out of examples of the success of the GP superclinic, but this one at Port Macquarie is pretty special. It is pretty special because the taxpayers of Australia have paid $5.6 million to this particular superclinic in Port Macquarie that was promised in 2010, but not a single patient has been seen at this clinic. So people rightly had an expectation that, when the Labor Party promised that a clinic would be set up, doctors would actually be employed and that patients would be seen.

I do not think it gets much more basic than that.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is the clinic that is meant to be opening in six months' time.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ballarat will desist.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People who build a house pay progress payments to the builder and pay a payment on completion. The problem is that Labor gave all of the money up-front. They devised some great schemes. As we know, the member for Sydney—who is now looking through press clips and all sorts of other issues but not concentrating on this area—after the success of the superclinic program, moved on to the housing affordability scheme that put money into housing that ended up sinking into the earth.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Health will resume his seat. The member for Ballarat on a point of order, and it must not be argument; it is a point of order.

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order on direct relevance. The minister was asked a question about the Port Macquarie superclinic that is opening in mid-2014. He should stick to that opening and not try and divert from that.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member is now debating and the member will resume her seat. The member knows full well that she must not debate the standing order. The Minister for Health has the call.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome that interjection from the member for Ballarat, because, let me assure you, these promises from Labor have been coming since 2007. The original proposal from Labor was that these superclinics would be set up and that people would be diverted away from emergency departments, but quickly they retreated from that statement because there has not been one shred of evidence in the last six years that any patient has been diverted away from an emergency department. At the same time, the Labor Party created 12 great, big, new health bureaucracies in Canberra. There are now 21 bureaucracies in addition to the department of health—and we do not run a single hospital. We do not employ a doctor, a nurse or a pharmacist that sees a patient. Yet, Labor diverted money away from these communities into these bureaucracies in Canberra. It is an absolute disgrace. I can tell you one thing: this government will not make the same mistakes that Labor did. We will put money back to frontline services and we will clean up Labor's mess in health.