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

I rise tonight to add further information to a less than fulsome statement made by Senator Back in the Senate last week in relation to abortion services in the Midland area of Western Australia. Among other issues, I argued in the Senate last week that the Western Australian government had made a hash of health services with its privatisation of public hospitals and that what has happened in Midland is that family planning and reproductive services will no longer be available at the privatised Catholic hospital. Despite this fact being well known in the local community—by health unions, by health groups and by community groups—it was apparently not known by the Barnett Liberal government.

In 2005, almost 15 years ago, the state Labor government announced the new hospital. In 2010, four years ago, the current Liberal government announced that the hospital would be privatised and that the tender had been awarded to St Johns. And, surprise, surprise: in June of this year, the Premier, Colin Barnett, who our Prime Minister wants to model himself on, declares that the failure by the government to provide abortion was a glitch. Well, what a glitch—15 years in the making, that glitch, and the WA Premier says it was a glitch in state government planning and policy.

Well, the Western Australian public knows better. They know Liberals cannot be trusted on health. The WA Liberals have failed to open the Fiona Stanley Hospital on time—14 months overdue and costing more than $¼ million a day for it to stay closed. And despite the AMA and other groups saying that the new children's hospital is too small and needs two more floors, the Liberals fail again, and the hospital will be too small before it is even open.

Then there is the 15-year-old glitch of the new Midland hospital—privatised and family planning services lost. So, what is the Liberals' glitch fix? Well, it is to build a stand-alone abortion clinic next to the privatised Catholic hospital. But of course the Catholics have objected to that and demanded that the clinic be separate from the hospital, away from its entrance and car park, and be separately fenced and not connected to the hospital in any way. The medical director of the family planning and sexual health services in WA said that this proposal could appear to be a return to the days when access to contraceptive methods was heavily restricted, when we should be working towards information and services being more accessible.

But of course it is not a glitch by the Liberals; it is complete mismanagement of our health service in Western. And, what is more, the Liberals have not managed to get anyone to run the new clinic as yet, so how long will it stand unopened? Whether it is the federal government or the state government, Liberals are incompetent when it comes to health. And Senator Back says:

There is no need for any greater expenditure of taxpayers' money because within a few hundred metres of that new hospital there is a facility in Midland which will undertake these procedures and it is there now.

The truth in this statement is that there is a clinic in Midland; there is certainly a clinic there. But Senator Back did not give the public the whole story. This clinic is a private clinic, and there is an up-front charge for services that must be paid on the day the service is sought. Those up-front costs can range from $500 to $1,300; they can even be as high as $5,500.

Of course, I am not criticising this private clinic, but it is completely unaffordable for many women, particularly low-income women, and that is why I have been critical of the Barnett government and will continue the criticism of the Liberals, both state and federal. And it is important that Senator Back be aware of all the facts when speaking on such an important issue, because he went on to say that somehow the public needs to have the full information. Well, they certainly do, and I have provided it today.

We certainly need a clinic in the Midland area. We need a clinic that is available to low-income women, and we need a clinic that is affordable. That is something the Liberals have absolutely failed to provide in the state of Western Australia, and the Liberals insult people by saying that it was some kind of glitch in the planning. Well, it is not good enough. It is an absolute disgrace, and it is time the Liberals lifted their game with our health.