Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. I refer the minister to this article in The Australian on 29 July, referring to Australian taxpayers' funds being used to pay parking fines by Medicare Locals. Minister, what is the government doing to tidy up the waste that we inherited from the other side?

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

I thank the honourable member for his question. There are lots of messes that Labor left the government and we are in the process of cleaning up each and every one of them.

Mr Husic interjecting—

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

The member for Chifley will desist!

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

The Health portfolio, I am sorry to say, was no exception by any stretch of the imagination. People who live in New South Wales or Queensland in particular know that Labor wreck the health system. They put money into bureaucracies—they take it away from patients and doctors and front-line services and they put it into health bureaucracies. That is what Labor do, and why do they do it? They do it because that is what pleases the union bosses. The union bosses are pleased with that sort of activity because it houses all sorts of former secretaries and workers within the union otherwise. That is why patients suffer.

Opposition members interjecting—

All of the declarations of indignation do not go anywhere. They protected the Health Services Union. They funnelled money into these dodgy causes and they took money away from the front line. They are shameful when it comes to the waste of taxpayers' money, and in the health space it is no different. When we came into government—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

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

The member for Sydney will desist!

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

The member for Sydney jumps in. There are two great achievements from the member for Sydney, the former health minister in the Labor government. It was the GP superclinics, and we know what has happened there: there are vacant paddocks across the country where people were supposed to be seeing GP superclinics. They have never been built. Do you know what happened when we came into government? We had a department and 23 outside agencies, presided over by Australia's worst health minister, Tanya Plibersek. When you look at the Medicare Locals, this is the other crowning achievement, or so she claims. We know that money was wasted through this network—

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. He was asked a question about Medicare Locals, which he said he was not going to close—

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

It is not an invitation to repeat the question. The member will resume her seat. I would remind those who wish to raise points of order: it is not an invitation to repeat the question. They have to make the case for why there is a question of relevance.

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

In relation to Medicare Locals, they created a great, big, new health bureaucracy within Medicare Locals and they distracted money away from doctors and nurses that should have been spent on patients and they put it into these bureaucratic structures.

We have said that we will cut from 61 the number of Medicare Locals down to a number less than 30, and we will get more money back to doctors and nurses so that patients can be seen, not just in primary-care settings but within public hospital settings as well. We are determined to make sure that we can reduce Labor's health bureaucracy, because they trash the health system at a state level. They trashed it at a federal level over the course of the last six years. And it is our job to clean up Labor's mess. We are getting more money to front-line services. Why? Because we have an ageing population and because we are determined to beef up the response at a primary-care level. We will clean up Labor's mess and we will make sure that more money gets back to the front-line health services in this country.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.