Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to contribute on a topic about which I've talked on my occasions in this place: the importance of appropriately funding our health and hospital system. This is a fundamental responsibility of government, yet it is one that the current Liberal-National government has failed to grasp. This is a divided and dysfunctional government that you wouldn't put in charge of a chook raffle at the present time. They are not capable of coming up with a plan to fix our hospitals. Just look at the latest backflip at the moment in relation to the funding for Foodbank—a terrible outcome, a $300,000 cut to an essential service. I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is open to reviewing this terrible decision, but it highlights the point: this is a government that cannot be trusted with important decisions that affect Australians. This is a government with a terrible track record when it comes to health. I've spoken about these matters before, but we know that the previous Prime Minister tried to implement a GP tax, and Australians are now paying $4 more out of their own pocket every time they go to the doctor and $12 more out of pocket when they need to see a specialist, and there have been other cruel cuts to the health budget.

Other speakers have spoken about the $715 million ripped out of hospitals around the country. From my own state that's $160 million taken out of Queensland hospitals, the equivalent of slashing the jobs of 1,435 nurses in our state. Brisbane's dedicated children's hospital, the Queensland Children's Hospital, has suffered a $6.5 million cut. The Metro North Health Services District has lost $32 million under the Liberal-Nationals, and let's see where that's coming from: $14.3 million from the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital; $7.7 million from The Prince Charles Hospital at Chermside; $2.9 million from Caboolture Hospital—and we learnt during the Longman by-election just how strongly locals felt about that; and $4.2 million, a funding cut equivalent to 37 fewer nurses, from Redcliffe Hospital in the seat of Petrie.

What's worse is that the Queensland government is still waiting for this divided and dysfunctional government to pay the $780 million owed for procedures delivered as far back as 2014. It is an absolute disgrace that under the previous Prime Minister the federal government spent 51 weeks arguing over undisputed funding and withholding payment from Queensland hospitals for procedures already delivered going back to 2014. As I've indicated, there is still funding missing. Queensland hospitals are still owed $780 million for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 financial years. This funding, as I said, is for operations and procedures performed as far back as 2016, in this case. It is a travesty that the government doesn't even want to meet its commitments for procedures already delivered.

I'm going to be concentrating on the issue of MRI licences a bit later on, but at this point it's worthwhile noting that, in contrast to the government, Labor has a proud record when it comes to MRI licences. We granted 238 of them when we were last in government. This government has delivered only five in the last five years. That's an indictment of their record. I will also highlight some of the other features of the plan, coming from Mr Morrison, to rip even more money from public hospitals. They've cut billions of dollars from public hospital budgets between now and 2025 and they also want to retrospectively claw back funding for services already provided. This just doesn't affect Queensland; as I've indicated, it affects other states, and I think every other state has indicated its opposition to this plan.

By contrast, Labor has a positive plan to restore $2.8 billion to hospitals through our already announced Better Hospitals Fund, which I think will be very much welcomed out there in the community. It will see an investment in every single public hospital in the country with, as I said, $2.8 billion for more beds and shorter surgery wait times. This fund will restore $2.8 billion from 2019 to 2025—fully reversing the Turnbull government's and other cuts in funding—for more beds, emergency departments, wards, doctors, nurses and health staff. This funding will be particularly targeted at reducing emergency department and elective surgery waiting times, which have blown out under the Liberals' cuts to Medicare and hospitals.

We know that, right now, the national average waiting time for elective surgery is the longest on record. The number of hospital beds available for elderly Australians is the lowest on record. The number of people presenting at emergency departments is the highest on record, and yet one in every three patients whose cases are considered urgent aren't seen on time. There were 7.8 million emergency department presentations in 2016-17, which is one million more than five years ago. This, as you can appreciate, puts our hospital system under immense pressure, which means that it needs more funding to keep up with increasing demand from the growing ageing population.

Labor has a commitment to benefit every hospital and patient in the country, and it's only Labor that can be trusted with the universality of our healthcare system. We know that those opposite are not truly committed to supporting our Medicare system, based on the number of occasions in the past that they've taken the opportunity to attack it.

As I said, I want to focus on MRIs, because they are so important in helping to care for people, and I want to point out the fact that the coalition government's failure on this issue has led to the fight being taken up by Labor candidates around the country, including in a couple of my duty electorates. I do want to pay tribute to Zac Beers, in the seat of Flynn, who has taken up this issue, and highlight the fact that the current federal member, Mr O'Dowd, has been unable to secure a Medicare MRI licence for Gladstone. It is of course the latest in a long list of failures by Mr O'Dowd. Despite clear evidence that Gladstone needs an MRI licence—including a bipartisan Senate committee report that recognised this region as an area of shortage—Gladstone was snubbed in the Liberals' announcement of new licences a couple of months ago. Other areas did receive MRI licences. Mr Morrison as Treasurer cut $1 million from the Gladstone Hospital and over $6 million from Central Queensland hospitals between 2017 and 2020. In contrast, Mr Beers has been able to get a commitment that a future Shorten Labor government would deliver an MRI licence for Gladstone and more than reverse the Liberals' cuts to the Gladstone Hospital as part of our $2.8 billion Better Hospitals Fund that I've talked about.

I also want to pay tribute to Corinne Mulholland, our candidate in the seat of Petrie—and I have spoken about this matter previously. Ms Mulholland has also been successful in getting a commitment from Mr Shorten that a future Labor government would deliver a new MRI licence for the hospital. This highlights the spectacular failure by current member Mr Howarth to secure such a licence. Despite the fact that he says he supports it, all he has offered is the fact that the Queensland government can go through a process for it. So he is offering Queenslanders paperwork rather than delivering for them, despite being in office for five years.

Whilst Liberal-National members continue to dillydally, hiding behind pending government reports and buck-passing, Labor is getting on with the job. Only Labor can be trusted to deliver— (Time expired)