Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday we found out that, along with this proposed radical new plan for our public schools that will see them become ghettos if it sees the light of day, the Abbott government wants to scrap Commonwealth funding for public hospitals. This is what leaked documents tell us. What I can say today with absolute certainty in this place is that when it comes to health, and in particular public health, Liberal governments, whether they are state governments or whether they are Commonwealth governments, simply cannot be trusted with our health. They have an appalling record. We all remember when Mr Abbott stood up before the election and said there would be no cuts to health. What an absolute mistruth and broken promise that has been because we have seen agency after agency scrapped; we have seen good programs lose their funding, and it would seem there is no end in sight based on this latest leaked proposal to scrap Commonwealth funding to our public hospitals.

I do not know where the Abbott government think the states would get funding from to fund public hospitals—he must think that these funds are just going to fall from the sky—but let us have a look at what they have done to health in the very short time they have been the government of Australia. There is the GP tax and the rumours around that: we had version 1 and then version 2 and we now have version 3 by stealth. We have already seen in this country the Abbott government impose a tax on people when they go to the doctor. We have seen the closing of Medicare Locals. What a huge success story they were, but, no, they were put there by a Labor government so that is enough for the Abbott government to say they have to go. We have seen the largest increase to private health insurance premiums in a decade, and just with the stroke of a pen they were able to go out. We have seen that the price of our pharmaceuticals will go up. We have seen cuts to preventative health research; we have seen cuts to chronic disease prevention; we have seen cuts to rural outreach. And, on top of this, what we saw yesterday in that leaked document is that it is the Abbott government's intention to go even further and to scrap Commonwealth funding to public hospitals. I am sure you will hear them get up in here today and deny that. That is the pattern of the Abbott government: first you leak the proposal, then you deny it like crazy and then maybe you tweak it a little bit and then in it comes. That is their record on health.

Let us take a look at Western Australia. Fancy asking a state government that has had its credit rating reduced to pick up any funding for public health. What kind of a game is that? The people who will be worse off are Western Australians because the Western Australian government has shown itself to be absolutely incapable of running a public health system, in the same way that the Abbott government has shown itself to be incapable of running and funding proper health services in this country—good, preventative health services. The Western Australian government is well and truly up there in terms of simply not being anywhere near competent in running public health. The projected midyear deficit in Western Australia is $1.3 billion, but does the Abbott government care? No. It is going to try to foist the cost of running public hospitals in my home state onto a government that has no money at all because of its absolute mismanagement. And that deficit in Western Australia is projected to blow out to $2.7 billion.

And it is a government cannot run a hospital. We have seen debacle after debacle with the Fiona Stanley Hospital—a flagship hospital developed and paid for by the previous Labor government. First of all, what the Barnett Liberal government did was privatise that hospital to a company that runs prisons and detention centres. So we have our flagship hospital in Western Australia on a 20-year contract with Serco—a 20-year contract! Serco have never run a public hospital in this country before, but that does not stop the Liberals; no, they give it away.

We have seen debacle after debacle: 18 months over its due opening date; almost half a million dollars a day in debt in the cost overruns in that hospital; an IT system that was so inadequate the state had to take it back—goodness knows what that cost; and, more recently, in the last four to six weeks, the sterilisation issue—an absolutely integral part of a public hospital, keeping patients well and giving them good surgical outcomes. It has been debacle after debacle: instruments going up to theatre all bloodied; instruments going up to theatre with bits of bone on them. It was so bad, despite the Liberal state health minister saying, 'Nothing wrong here,' but finally they conceded. Serco have lost that contract. They have lost two contracts in the very short space of time they had that hospital—first the IT system and now the sterilisation.

This Abbott government want to hand the funding of public hospitals over to the Western Australia government—what a joke. Neither the federal Liberal government nor the state Liberal government can run hospitals. It does not stop there in Western Australia. In 2008, it was proposed that the Royal Perth Hospital would close and it would close because Labor had a flagship hospital, Fiona Stanley, which the Liberals have since dragged through the mud. But, no, the Barnett Liberal government made a great promise to the people of Western Australia that they would turn Royal Perth Hospital into a 400-bed emergency type hospital. Guess what? That is not happening anymore. It was completely scrapped last year—a broken promise there. And there were great plans to upgrade our rural hospitals. Guess what? They have been scrapped as well.

So in Western Australia we have seen public hospital after public hospital absolutely lose funding. The latest Barnett debacle was to give the public hospital in the eastern suburbs, a poor area, to the Catholics, to the St John of God Health Care system. Guess what happened to reproductive technology? It is gone. 'Oops' said Mr Barnett, 'We didn't realise that St John of God wouldn't do any reproductive health.' They will not do terminations; they will not do sterilisations—no, no, no. So Mr Barnett says, 'It's all right, we'll build a stand-alone facility in the grounds of this privatised hospital.' St Johns said to them: 'Oh, no, you won't. We're not having those services next to our hospital.' What a bungle by the Liberal state government, and this is exactly what this government is trying to do. It does not matter how much they stand up in here and say they have not cut the federal health budget; they absolutely have.

What a low blow yesterday: the leaked document which says they are trying to get out of Commonwealth funding of public hospitals. The health status of Western Australians is already in a parlous state because of the constant bungling and the cost overruns by the Barnett government. Goodness knows what will happen to Western Australians if this latest move comes into being. That is the record of the Abbott government—deny, deny, deny. Remember the GP tax? 'We're not going to do that.' Deny, deny, deny and suddenly there it is: a GP tax. That is exactly what will happen here. I am telling you, Australians will not stand for it. Our public hospitals and our public health systems used to be world leaders. Under this Abbott government, they are slowly and surely being dragged down to levels that are completely unacceptable in a country as wealthy as ours.

On preventative health, we have heard front-line service after front-line service lose money under this government. On drug and alcohol services, we hear so much about their ice program, but there needs to be a preventative focus. The Abbott government do not seem to understand that, as they rip front-line funding away from services like that. We have seen them deny this and they will continue to deny it, but the truth gets out. This is a disgraceful move, particularly from a government that said in the lead-up to the election, 'There'll be no cuts to health.' That is completely untrue. We have seen nothing but attack after attack after attack on good preventative services. This latest move to scrap funding to our public hospitals is disgraceful.