Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mallee for his question. I certainly acknowledge his strong support for the many private doctors, private hospitals and also public hospitals in his electorate. I can inform the House that nearly all of the state Labor governments make good use of the private sector to, amongst other things, reduce their public hospital waiting lists. Many of the state Labor governments also use the private sector, including the for-profit private sector, to actually run some of their public hospitals—for instance, Noosa public hospital in Queensland, which is run by Ramsay Health Care corporation, as are the Joondalup public hospital in Perth and the excellent Mildura public hospital in the electorate of Mallee. There is Healthscope, another for-profit private company, which runs the Modbury Public Hospital in South Australia. There are the great religious charities which have long run some of the largest public hospitals in Australia, such as St Vincent’s public hospitals in Sydney and Melbourne and Calvary Public Hospital here in Canberra.

The Keating government in a responsible moment privatised the management of those great repatriation hospitals, such as Greenslopes in Brisbane and Hollywood in Perth, to the great benefit of patients and taxpayers. The state Labor governments are not embarrassed by using the private sector. For instance, we had the New South Wales health minister earlier this year saying:

The Government is unapologetic about using services in the private sector ... where it’s otherwise better value for money to be able to provide ... those services and more efficient to do so in the private sector.

Premier Bracks wants to ‘use the innovative skills and abilities of the private sector in a way that is most likely to deliver improved services to the community’—including using a for-profit private company to deliver support and cleaning services in the new women’s hospital in Melbourne. Unlike responsible Labor politicians, the member for Lalor will always grab the chance to smear the private sector.

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