Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I note that the minister has so far not risen to answer my questions, in particular those in relation to, if the minister claims that he has put the kibosh on this Commonwealth hospital plan and that it was a frolic that the departmental secretary was on, what disciplinary action he has taken against his departmental secretary. If he was not on a frolic of his own, will you come clean and actually say what your plans were for our public hospitals?

I want to go to the substance of this Commonwealth hospital benefit that this government has been working on for the past 18 months. This is not something that is new and that has just emerged. The Commonwealth currently pays for around 40 per cent of public hospital services and, through the private health insurance rebate, 30 per cent for private hospital services. Basically, under the government's plan, what this secret task force was developing was a Commonwealth hospital benefit which would have seen the Commonwealth pay 35 per cent of costs for both systems, which would have been a massive cut to our public hospital system. That is what this proposal that had been in development for some time would have done. The government cannot have it both ways. Either the secretary was on a frolic of his own—and the government should be telling us what it is planning to do about that—or the government was agreeing to the plan's development, which is what we actually know was happening.

Anyone who has been in a public hospital recently would know that a substantial cut to public hospital funding, which is what this proposal would have meant, would have a devastating impact on our public hospitals. We know already, from the Australian Medical Association's Public hospital report card, that the waiting times in emergency departments and for elective surgeries have blown out under this government and that this government is responsible for dropping the NEAT and NEST targets. It has taken its foot off the accelerator in dealing with those issues. Of the 48 targets the AMA measures, our public hospitals across the country are meeting only three. Perhaps that is why the President of the AMA described the government's secret plan as a 'disaster for our public hospitals'.

It would have also abolished the private health insurance rebate. The minister says he loves private health insurance, and I look forward to him saying that again in this debate, because we are planning to use it extensively, which we have done already on social media. It was in the presentation given at least twice by his top officials that the minister's plan was to abolish the rebate. I again reiterate to the minister: it is in fact in COAG documents that that is what your proposal plans to do. The minister now says that the plan is off the table—

A government member: My plan?

You are not a member of the government? You are not a member of the continuity of the government? Suddenly, somehow, you are not actually part of what has happened? Now the minister claims the plan is off the table. Frankly, I have heard that before. I have been through the GP tax debate, and we all know what the words 'no plans yet' mean. We know exactly what those words mean: that in fact you have been developing them.

I want to go specifically to what the budget does have. The budget papers show that in fact the government have reverted—in 2021—to Tony Abbott's hospital formula. The budget papers show they have reverted to that. After tearing up Labor's National Health Reform Agreement with the states and cutting billions of dollars out of our public hospitals as a result, in 2021 they will revert to the previous formula. The government's commitment for extra money, which they had to put in in the lead-up to the election campaign, only runs to 2020. So I want to ask the minister specifically: are you planning to bring back, in 2021, the cuts that you had in the 2014 budget? Because if you are planning to revert to that formula then that is what you are saying you are going to be doing. That represents, compared Labor's agreement, in that 2021 year alone, a $3.4 billion cut—in one year—to our public hospital system.

Again, the minister cannot have it both ways. If he says he is not planning to keep the 2014 measure in the 2021 budget—that it is just a placeholder in the budget—he has a problem, because he has a significant unfunded liability. Minister, you have a big fiscal cliff coming in 2021. You have a big black hole in your budget when it comes to health. So what is it? Have you got a black hole or are you reverting to the cuts of 2014?

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