Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I have proposed this matter of public importance today because it is becoming clearer by the day that the Rudd government is walking away from its election commitment made last November to the Australian people that it would fix the public hospital system in this country. There is no more important issue to Australians than having an adequate health system, both a public and private system, properly funded, properly resourced and properly staffed to provide the services that they need, particularly for older Australians. There is a sense of decency inherent in the Australian community which says that they want the government of the day to provide an adequate health system which will meet the needs not just of older Australians but of families of all Australians. This government went to the last election with the commitment that if it did not fix the public hospital system by mid-2009 it would go to the next election asking the Australian people for a referral of the responsibility of management of public hospitals in this country, a commitment that it now seems intent on walking away from.

I have mentioned in the House today that on 22 October this year the Prime Minister, on his website, said under the ‘Fixing our hospitals’ heading:

The Rudd Government is committed to achieving national health care reform in partnership with state and territory governments. However, if significant progress toward the implementation of the reforms has not been achieved by mid-2009, the Government will seek a mandate from the Australian people at the following federal election for the Commonwealth to take financial control of Australia’s 750 public hospitals.

It is specific and express in its intent and, as I understand it, it reflects exactly the Prime Minister’s statement during the election campaign that that was what he would do if the states continued their failure in the management of those public hospital systems. But, if you go to the website of the Prime Minister today, you will not find any reference to that commitment. That is an amazing turnaround by this government, but not a surprising one. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I asked a question in this place of the Deputy Prime Minister, then Acting Prime Minister, as to whether or not the Rudd government would stand by their commitment to go to a referendum at the 2010 election, or earlier if the election were called earlier, to ask the Australian people for that mandate. At that stage—suspiciously, I thought at the time—she squibbed that question, but nonetheless it is now understandable why she did. If you go to the website of the Prime Minister of Australia as at 2 December 2008, there is no reference. There is talk about improving our hospitals but no longer about fixing our hospitals. The headline on 22 October was ‘Fixing our hospitals’; now they are only improving our hospitals.

People might say: ‘What does that mean? What’s the difference?’ If you know this Prime Minister and the work of this government then you will understand exactly the significance of the changing of the wording and the moving away from that original statement that it would ask the Australian public for a mandate to take over public hospitals. It is because this government is all spin and no substance. This is a government which is intent on finding weasel words to come up with a way in which it can find its way through a political issue. It has focus groups working 24/7. That is who is working 24/7 in the Rudd government: it is the focus groups. The focus group organisers get out there, talking to groups that they bring together and pay money to, and they say, ‘Let me put this statement to you: the Prime Minister of Australia is indecisive.’ The groups say: ‘Yes, I think he’s indecisive. I think he’s not doing what he said he would at the last election.’ It is amazing, because then the focus group organiser comes out and says: ‘What would make you say the Prime Minister was decisive? What if the Prime Minister got up and said, “I’m going to act decisively, and I’ll make a decisive decision, and decisively I’ll decide that this decision will be carried out by the decisive Rudd government.”‘ And the group says, ‘I would find that decisive.’

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