Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to this report because I think it is a very important piece of record-keeping about the impact of the cuts to health that were heralded in that tragic 2014 budget brought in by the then Prime Minister Abbott. I want to speak to it this week in particular in the context of what has happened in the House of Representatives. I remind those who might be listening, and anybody who catches up with this speech that I am giving here today, that this week in the House of Representatives a vote was taken that absolutely and clearly indicates that the cuts in health that were backed in by the Abbott government, the $56 billion worth of cuts that the Abbott-Turnbull government undertook, are very much a real and live thing for this country.

What happened this week was that Liberal MPs in the House—I assume in concert with those here in the Senate—voted against guaranteeing to keep Medicare in public hands as a universal health insurance scheme for Australia. They are bleating all over the place about a 'Mediscare' campaign. But here in the Senate, where they think people might not be watching the chaos that has ensued under this government, they voted against keeping Medicare in public hands. They voted against protecting bulk-billing so that every Australian can see their doctor when they need to, not just when they can afford to. The Liberal and National parties voted against that this week in the House of Representatives. They refused to reverse harmful cuts to Medicare by unfreezing the indexation of the Medical Benefits Schedule. They voted against reversing cuts to pathology that will mean Australians with cancer will pay more for blood tests. They voted against reversing cuts to breast screening, MRIs, X-rays and other diagnostic imaging.

They want the election to go away. They lost all but a one-seat majority and they are trying to pretend Australians were hoodwinked. But today I want to put on the record that this week in the parliament, once again, they showed their true colours: they are committed to a massive cut to the health care of Australians. They voted against abandoning their plans to make all Australians, even pensioners, pay more for vital medicines. Finally, in the House this week, in concert with their Senate colleagues, the Liberal and National parties voted against developing a long-term agreement to properly fund our public hospitals so that Australians do not languish in our emergency departments or on long waiting lists for important surgery. That final point really brings home the message that Mr Turnbull, the Prime Minister of Australia, still has not learned his lesson. He copped a shellacking in the election. One seat is that majority—and we know how fragile that is because we have already seen them fail on multiple occasions in the 10 days they have had here in Canberra.

But the government has not reversed a single cut from the election. Why is that so important in regard to the report I am speaking to this evening? The report that I am addressing is the final report of the select health committee from the last parliament entitled Hospital Funding Cuts: The Perfect Storm. And that subtitle tells what happened—the demolition of federal-state health relations from 2014 to 2016. If I was a member of the government I would be hoping that this was going away. But this is a story we need to retell and retell and retell.

Prior to the Abbott government coming into being, a series of national partnership agreements were established to end the blame game on who is responsible for health—whether it is the state government or the federal government. It was a proportional responsibility that was assumed—that both levels were responsible for health. Those agreements were simply torn up with the hubris and arrogance that we now see every day on display from this government—torn up and destroyed. Those vital partnerships, federal-state relations, were torn apart. We are seeing now, as a legacy of those agreements being torn up, the impact of cuts to health.

In New South Wales it is creating incredible financial pressure on the state, and it is starting to manifest in all sorts of bizarre decisions by the state government of New South Wales. They are linked intimately with the cuts at federal level. I want to make sure that people who are listening to the parliamentary broadcast, including people from the Central Coast, know that there will be a very important community gathering of people who are a wake-up to this Liberal-National government; who understand that the government are cutting our access to health and in the Central Coast region they want to privatise Wyong Hospital. This Sunday at 11 am, at the Morrie Breen Oval on Wallarah Road in Kanwal, there will be a community gathering of concerned residents from right across the coast who have seen Premier Baird decide he should privatise five hospitals, including Wyong. The impact of that is very, very concerning, particularly in light of evidence that we have received about the scale of the New South Wales cuts.

Mr Baird, it seems, has decided that instead of taking on his colleagues here at federal level he is going to cut services to the people of New South Wales. He is letting his federal colleagues get away with their massive cuts to New South Wales. Why is he in this situation? Let's talk about what the scale of this is. This is evidence we received from Dr Andrew McDonald, a paediatrician from Campbelltown Hospital who was formerly the health minister in a Labor government and who understands the budgetary implications of these cuts very well indeed:

The annual hospitals budget, from New South Wales, is about $20 billion. That is one year's salary, effectively … You can close the system for a year or you can fund to meet demand … $18.3 billion so it is, virtually, a year's New South Wales hospital budget worth of cuts.

That is what New South Wales is attempting to accommodate and, rather than take on his federal colleagues, Mr Baird is starting to cut the services for New South Wales.

We heard about what it means on the ground. In evidence that we received in March 2015 to the select committee hearing in Gosford, the Australian Paramedics Association told the committee of the serious impacts that increasing resource pressures are having on paramedics. These are vital people, who come to respond to emergencies on the ground in our community on the Central Coast. They said that due to at-capacity emergency departments, ambulances are being forced to 'ramp' until an emergency bed becomes available. Mr Jeff Andrew, the Vice President of the Australian Paramedics Association, explained that a two-hour ramp at peak periods is not unusual. A ramp is when an ambulance crew cannot discharge the patient that they brought to the hospital. They have to stay there with them and cannot go to the next call. Mr Andrew said a recent experience of a six-hour ramp would become common.

That is what we are starting to hear more and more of in the community. I am sure that people who attend this community rally, this community gathering of concern about the cuts to their health access and health services, will hear, sadly, more stories of the impact of the cuts from this federal government.

Mr Andrew described the whole system as 'overwhelmed'. When he was asked what additional pressures would result from the government's decision to cut $56 billion over eight years from the hospital system, combined with the government's additional measures to cut primary care—which I have not even mentioned in my speech yet—Mr Andrew, a paramedic on the front line said this:

I think we will get more sick patients if the primary health care is not attended to. I mentioned some patients, like asthma patients and patients with a chronic disease like emphysema, who have been better managed because there are good strategies and care plans in place for them. Any budget cuts in that area will only reflect to us getting them at a sicker state. There will be a higher burden on the presentations in the health system.

So, we have a twin attack on the health and wellbeing of people across the nation and in the great state of New South Wales that I represent. In a climate where its funding has been cut to the bone, the New South Wales government is inflicting pain on communities, and the further away you are from Manly and Mr Baird, the harder he is cutting. This needs to stop.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.