Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On the same document and, I might say—not that I like doing this—on the same subject that Senator Cameron was talking about: health in Australia has always been something that we as a nation are very, very proud of. And I give thanks to Sir Robert Menzies, who as Prime Minister introduced a lot of the health benefits that we now accept as normal in Australia. I do, again, take up Senator Cameron's point about medical practices being small businesses. It is one occasion on which Senator Cameron is correct; they are small business. But they would be the first to tell you that under the six years of Labor dysfunction in government the cost of running any sort of a business, including medical practices, just skyrocketed and put upward pressure on the small businesses that are medical practices.

Following along Senator Cameron's interpretation of this document, can I simply point out that the federal government did make a mistake on co-payments; that has been conceded. It is something that I have been talking about for some time. Because I am in the Liberal Party, I am able to get up publicly and point out differences of opinion with the health minister on the way that health operates in Australia. If Senator Cameron had done that in the days of the Labor government—if he had had the intestinal fortitude to do it, and I suspect that he would not have—he would have been expelled from the Labor Party. He would have been thrown out of the Labor Party because the Labor Party do not allow any dissension or any public debate. They do what the unions tell them to do. The unions simply tell whichever Labor Prime Minister it happens to be what they want, whether it be in health funding or anything else.

As Senator O'Sullivan said in his interjection: 'What would Senator Cameron know about small business?' As he also said, 'Would Senator Cameron have ever been to Armidale?' I suspect not. Senator Cameron is one of those that lives in the leafy suburbs of Sydney, in the high-rise area, up on the 55th storey of one of these big buildings, where he was the director of one of those big insurance companies—at what cost, we do not know. What would he know about a small business in Tamworth, in Armidale or anywhere in rural and regional Australia?

I am delighted that the minister, Sussan Ley, is seriously looking at a number of issues in the health area. Clearly, the way that the current health system works is unsustainable. If we keep going at this rate, then in the time of our kids and our grandkids there will not be any sort of health system, because it will simply have run out of money. I think that everybody accepts that something has to be done; it is what is right. The National Health Funding Body, whose report we are dealing with, speak generally about the difficulties of funding in health. I give every congratulation to Mr Abbott and Ms Ley for their work in ensuring that Australia continues to have a first-class health system—a health system that really emanated from the days of Sir Robert Menzies. I commend the National Health Funding Body report for 2013-14 to the Senate.