Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister update the House on the impact of the carbon tax on hospitals and the healthcare sector, and how will repealing the world's biggest carbon tax help reduce costs in this vital sector?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. I visited his electorate not too long ago. He has a great interest in health matters and trying to enhance health services locally. He has been, like most people from New South Wales, completely gobsmacked by the years of Labor as they mismanaged health in New South Wales and now in the last six months many of the same union hacks transferred from New South Wales into the federal parliament to mismanage the health system here. Not much changes under Labor; not much changes at all.

I was reflecting the other night and I thought, 'What is my favourite documentary?' I think my favourite documentary was probably TheHollowmen. It was a documentary of the Rudd-Gillard years. It documented all of the great successes, such as the advisers coming in to then ministers, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, and advising them on particular matters like how they could come up with a big distraction. I thought, 'What would they have done in relation to the carbon tax? How would they have advised the member for Sydney, who was the world's worst ever health minister, on the impact of a carbon tax?'

The carbon tax, of course, applies to hospitals just like it does to every process in the economy that involves energy. When you turn the lights on at home, the carbon tax hit you. When you drive down the road to pick up the kids after school, you are paying the carbon tax. When you go the supermarket, the carbon tax applies. Labor had never thought about this. They had never thought about what happens in hospitals, pharmacies or surgeries around the country and the inconvenience of having to run 24-hour ICU units. What happens there? The carbon tax applies. You can imagine the scene in TheHollowmen where they come in and say, 'Well, we could just turn the lights off in the hospital.' But somebody must realise that there are patients within hospitals and there are costs in running hospitals.

If you are spending money on electricity and carbon taxes within hospitals and public hospital settings, you are not spending that money on health. This is a very important point. We have heard a lot today from the Labor Party about nurses. Do you know why that is? It is not because they have an interest in nurses; it is because the nurses union is in town. I will tell you one thing that happens when the union bosses are in town: these people dance to their tune. They dance to their tune at every opportunity. They dance to the tune of the nurses union at every opportunity because it is the nurses union, it is the HSU and it is the AMWU—it is all of the unions—that decide whether or not these people sit in parliament. That is why they are second-rate when they are in government and that is why we will continue to draw the distinction between the bad years of Labor—as it operates at a state level and as it has operated at a federal level—and the competence of this side of the House. We always are elected to clean up Labor messes. We are in the process of doing it now and we will do it for as long as it takes. (Time expired)