Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to commend Senator Di Natale for his well-reasoned and well-thought-out slamming of this government's current handling of the—

Senator Wong interjecting—

I think I should take that interjection from Senator Wong: 'A unity ticket between the Greens and the coalition.' They cannot cop criticism over there. They are very upset with the trial separation that they are currently undergoing with their friends from the Greens. But it is good to have someone with Senator Di Natale's background and analytical skills looking at this area—the contribution that we just had from Senator Polley was just nonsense—as the current funding situation has developed.

We are here talking about Labor's waste and mismanagement, and the chaos caused in the health sector. None of that should come as a surprise to anybody dealing with this government. Waste and mismanagement is their middle name. But the thing about this particular little effort that really stunned all the state health ministers was the fact that the funding cuts were in part retrospective. As the Queensland Minister for Health, Mr Lawrence Springborg, has pointed out, they were going back to grab money off procedures that had happened 18 months earlier. It is just inconceivable that Ms Plibersek, as Minister for Health, thought that she could drivel her way out of this by talking about 'over the next four years' without mentioning what had happened.

Let us look at the much-vaunted National Health and Hospital Reform package. Let us look at the national partnership agreement. One would have thought, as Senator Di Natale said, if you were going to backdate a wage decrease to someone you had a national partnership agreement with, you would have told them. But it was in the detail of the MYEFO late last year where the health ministers found out what they had lost. If you look at those figures, it is just startling to think about how much money has been ripped off.

Victoria has had $107 million restored. Well, Queensland would like its $103 million restored, although that is only a part of the $382 million that has been taken out of our health budget over the next four years. If you look at the results of that, it is shocking. The Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service in Queensland has lost $6½ million. In Brisbane, Metro North has lost $22½ million and Metro South has lost $18.8 million. Did we get any comments at all from the Queensland Leader of the Opposition about the fact that this money has been pulled out of Metro South? You would have thought the member for Inala cared about the fact that the federal government has taken almost $19 million out of the hospital and health services in her area—but no, nothing. Townsville has lost $7.8 million. Probably even more disturbing, the Torres Strait northern peninsular, which of course everyone knows is such a well serviced area, and I am being sarcastic in saying that, have lost $1 million out of their budget.

I suppose, as I said, there is no surprise in the waste and mismanagement aspect of this problem. This government have set up 12 new health bureaucracies over the past five years, but they promised 16 early psychosis prevention and intervention centres. Guess how many of those they have delivered? They have delivered none, none at all. There has been nothing delivered there, just more bureaucracy. They seem to think they can get away with using the state health budgets and talking drivel, as I said earlier, about the effects without anyone objecting. And there is the blame game. When Mr Lawrence Springborg in Queensland was talking about the half-cocked approach that Ms Plibersek was taking to this, he said: 'Just give us the $103 million. I don't care if you break the COAG agreement, just somehow put it back into our health budget.' What a disaster.