Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bilyk for her question regarding the need for accessibility and sustainability in the health care system in Australia. The Rudd government is delivering the reform needed to ensure that Australians can get the health care they need. These reforms are all the more necessary following the callous actions of the current Leader of the Opposition, who as health minister gouged $1 billion out of the public health system and capped GP numbers.

Let me lay out more explicitly a little bit of the groundwork. The Howard government’s 2003 budget papers showed progressive cuts to the projected spending on public hospitals of, first, $109 million, then $172 million, then $265,000 and then $373 million. Further advice from the Department of Health is that the final year of the agreement saw a cut of $497 million. All of those cuts were presided over by the then Minister for Health, the current Leader of the Opposition. The opposition leader lacks credibility on health. He lacks a sense of fairness when it comes to the need to make sure that all Australians, not just those who are rich or well off, can access the health care they need. The 2003-04 budget papers of the Howard government made it absolutely clear. They were making these cuts because they expected fewer people to go into public hospitals after the government drove the private health insurance rebate. The money that the opposition leader ripped out of the hospital system could have funded an extra 1,025 hospital beds or 760 GP training places by 2007-08. (Time expired)