Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was interesting listening to the member for Boothby give a glossy version of the government’s health record. It was one with no substance and one which did not touch on the real issues that are affecting the real people I and members on this side of parliament represent—real people whom, I might add, government members represent but whose interests they do not always take into account. The Howard government has failed to deliver quality, affordable health care and health services to the Australian people. The Howard government’s performance in the area of health is abysmal. It stands condemned for failing to address the hard issues in health. This is a government big on rhetoric and small on action. In more recent times it has been totally obsessed with its internal machinations rather than delivering quality health services to the Australian people. It has taken its eye off the ball and focused totally on its own internal machinations.

In November 2006 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing delivered a report called The blame game. It was an excellent report. It looked across the spectrum at health. It made a number of very sound recommendations, 29 in fact. Guess what? To date the government has not even bothered to respond to that report. I think this really shows just how serious this government is about health. There has been no action on these important issues and yet the blame game continues. The Prime Minister and his Minister for Health and Ageing refuse to take responsibility for anything, particularly problems in the health system. The favoured approach to solving problems in the health system is to blame the states. They are always looking for somebody else to blame when things are not going right. They accuse the states of cost shifting. But if they had a look at what is happening in the health system, they would see that many of the inefficiencies and much of the cost shifting happen at a federal level. They accuse the states of failing to treat patients in public hospitals whilst simultaneously reducing funds to the states. As previous speakers have highlighted, this government has actually cut funding to the states for hospitals, yet it asks them to do more and more. When they do not deliver, it blames the states. This government is very good at abrogating its responsibility and blaming others.

One of the first acts of the Howard government was to cut the Commonwealth dental health program. People are now languishing on lengthy waiting lists. In my electorate there are people who have waited up to six years to get the vital dental treatment they need. Under the Howard government, a chronic doctor shortage has developed. In the electorate of Shortland, all the doctors between Belmont and Swansea—which is quite a significant geographical area—have closed their books, simply because they do not have the capacity to see any more patients. You have elderly people languishing in their homes, unable to see a doctor, simply because the doctors do not have the capacity and cannot see them. The accident and emergency departments in the local hospitals at Belmont and right across the Hunter New England Area Health Service have burgeoned. People are waiting for longer periods of time. I have spoken to the executive of the area health service and they placed that directly at the feet of the Commonwealth government, because those people simply cannot get to see a doctor locally. There is no doctor to see in their community, so what do those people have to do? They have to front up at the accident and emergency department. The government has done nothing about that except blame the states.

The Howard government has seen a skyrocketing of out-of-pocket expenses, and acute beds in public hospitals are used for frail aged people who should have beds in aged-care facilities. Unlike the government, the ALP has a real plan, and the plan is not to blame other people; it is to spend $2 billion in addressing the crisis in the health system. It is a plan to stop the blame game; a plan to slash the dental health waiting list. The minister emphasised that the government has a plan. I would argue that the only plan that the government has is to win the election, and its aim is to win that election at all costs. It will do nothing whatsoever—(Time expired)

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