Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Ageing in the Senate, Senator Ludwig. Can the minister confirm that before the last election Mr Rudd promised, ‘I’ll take responsibility for fixing our hospital system,’ and further said, ‘The buck will stop with me’? Can the minister also confirm that prior to the last election Mr Rudd promised to take over public hospitals if the states and territories had not begun implementing a national health reform plan by mid-2009? Does the minister concede that this promise, particularly the timing of it, has been spectacularly broken, and will he tell the Senate why?

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

Those opposite really need to hark back to when they managed the health and hospital system and led it into a billion-dollar debt. This government has undertaken the most comprehensive root-and-branch review of the health system ever. Ideas like a clearer separation between emergency and elective surgery have been proposed by the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, and we will be considering those recommendations very carefully. We are not going to be ruling any one target recommendation in or out. It is important for Australia to have strong public debate on the options put forward. I welcome the opposition engaging in the public debate, but they also need to put it in the frame of how they contributed to the health and hospital system when they were in government. This government is undertaking a significant health and hospital reform agenda that is going to deliver. We have already delivered $64 billion over five years in health and hospital funding—more than what the opposition considered.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order: relevance. I did not ask what the government’s plans were. I asked: has Mr Rudd broken the promises about health he made explicitly before the last election?

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot tell the minister how to answer the question, as I have said before. You have 47 seconds remaining to answer the question, Senator Ludwig.

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

Thank you, Mr President. Perhaps the opposition are not listening to what I am saying. We have been going through the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s recommendations and we have indicated that we are not ruling anything in or out. I ask the opposition to engage in the process, rather than being sideline critics of it. We have held 75 consultations across all states to seek people’s views on directions for health reform. The health reform system is becoming unsustainable and has reached a tipping point, after 12 years of neglect by the Howard government, by those who sit opposite us today. We realise our population is ageing, health costs are rising and there also severe shortages— (Time expired)

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I refer to the Prime Minister’s promise to end the buck-passing between the states and the Commonwealth on hospitals. Given that the ACT bed occupancy rates at the moment are dangerously high and that there are more than 600 people in this territory on elective surgery waiting lists, will the minister admit that the ACT hospital system—one of those ones Mr Rudd promised to fix—is in chaos, that the government has not fixed the hospital system that Labor promised it would fix and that the government has therefore broken its election promise?

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

Let me reject the propositions that are being put forward. The opposition have really missed the point of what I have indicated. What this government has done, in contradistinction to what the Liberals did when they were in government, is deliver $750 million for emergency departments across 50 hospitals. That is what this government has done in the health and hospital system, unlike those opposite, who did not look at how to deal with the health and hospital system over the period they were in government. We have also delivered $600 million for elective surgery waiting lists, which is an extra 41,000 operations, and stage 2 of that is for 109 hospitals. This government has put its money where its mouth is and has started to address the serious difficulties that have been experienced in health and hospital systems across Australia—unlike those opposite, who did not turn their minds to how they could fix the health and hospital system. They did not start the process. This government has started the process and has been putting the effort in. (Time expired)

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Let us turn to another issue. Thirty-one GP superclinics were promised by the Rudd Labor opposition—31. So far the government has opened just one GP superclinic after two years in office. Will the minister admit that, in this area, the government has spectacularly broken its election promise?

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

This government went to the election with a commitment to establish 31 GP superclinics. This number has now increased to 36. Every GP superclinic will deliver additional health services to their local community—for example, in Ballan the GP superclinic is already providing a range of services including increased GP services and dental services. At five other sites—southern Lake Macquarie, Palmerston, Devonport, the Blue Mountains, and Warnervale on the north Central Coast of New South Wales—early services are also being provided to the community. Each of the GP superclinics must meet the program objectives that require the clinic to meet the needs of the local community. Those opposite need to get their facts right when they rise to ask a question in this area, because this government is working with the local communities to establish GP superclinics and of course they do provide— (Time expired)