Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was great to hear from Senator Furner about what they have been doing, the clinics that have been promised and the clinics that are actually open, but I want to know what has happened to the clinics that have been promised and not yet opened. You promised 31 GP superclinics. You then promised 36 GP clinics. You might as well promise 336 GP clinics for all the ones that have actually been opened. When are we going to get the other 30 clinics that you promised two years ago to open? After two years in office it is time to be able to start to judge the performance, not just the rhetoric, of the Rudd Labor government, to start to say: ‘You put these promises on the table. You said you would do these things. Where do you stand today? What have you actually delivered?’ The situation is pretty grim, pretty unattractive.

In question time today we asked about the promise to fix the public hospitals of Australia. We asked about the delivery of the 31/36 GP superclinics. We asked about the end to the buck-passing which has characterised health care in this country. On all those issues we had nothing but stonewalling from the minister. I remind the government that hospitals are essentially a state and territory responsibility, but in the 2007 federal election campaign the Rudd Labor opposition, particularly Mr Rudd, acquired that issue by saying, ‘I will fix this problem.’ The question at this point is: what has he done?

The report of the AMA on the state of Australia’s public hospitals was published just a few weeks ago. Let’s see what it says about this:

Major metropolitan teaching hospitals commonly operate on a bed occupancy rate of 95 per cent or above. These rates are too high. Hospital overcrowding is the most serious cause of reduced patient safety in public hospitals.

Is that fixing a public hospital system, I ask you? The AMA goes on to say:

… public hospital infrastructure has been allowed to decay in many areas. Equipment, facilities and environment need updating, modernising and brought up to standard.

Is this fixing Australia’s public hospitals? I don’t think so. ‘The declining performance on emergency cases is unacceptable,’ says the AMA. Is that fixing our public hospitals? I don’t think so.

Let’s look at a more specific proposal put forward by the Rudd Labor government to ‘fix these problems’. In November 2008 the Council of Australian Governments entered a landmark deal for the national health care agreement, providing $64.4 billion over five years. At the time, the Prime Minister said:

Together with the investments the Government has already made in hospitals, this could support an additional 3,750 beds in 2009-10, growing to 7,800 additional beds by 2012-13.

What does the AMA say about that?

To date, there is no evidence to show that these new beds have been opened.

It is two years since these promises were made. Where are we seeing the delivery? We are seeing very little delivered in the way of GP superclinics. We are seeing an increase in private health insurance costs, even though the government promised not to touch that area. We are seeing changes to the extended Medicare safety net rebate after there was a promise made not to make any changes there.

The fact is that public hospitals are slipping backwards. It is obvious to every person in this place, I think, and indeed every health consumer around the country, that our public hospital systems are not being fixed. They are not getting better, as promised. They are going backwards. Mr Rudd and his government apparently have no answer to that question except to say: ‘We’re working on it. We’re spending money. Something is being done. Just leave it to us—we’ll get around to it in due course.’ The problem is that you promised to fix it by the middle of this year. You said: ‘I’ll fix the problem by the middle of 2009 or I’ll take the public hospitals over. I’ll have a referendum and I will deliver a federally controlled public hospital system.’ Neither of those things is happening. We are not seeing the hospitals fixed and we are not seeing a federal takeover. It is still a work in progress. Although citizens of this community might be prepared to give the federal government the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer, sooner or later you have got to actually put the goods on the table. You have to show that you are delivering something that improves our public hospital system, and the evidence to date is that you are not improving the public hospital system. In fact, things are going backwards. We are entitled to ask questions about that and get answers, and we are not getting answers today.

Question agreed to.