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

and the coalition spent $12.5 billion, a real increase of 48 per cent. The soon-to-be-retired member for Banks, somewhat past it in this place, occasionally forgets to take his medication and comes in here with increasingly incomprehensible interjections about hospital funding and the healthcare agreements. In 1993-95 the Labor Party committed $23 billion to the healthcare agreement. When we were last in government, for the period 2003-05 the healthcare agreement went to $42 billion.

We would have put together a very similar package in dollar terms to that which the Labor government announced on the weekend. There is no question about that. There is no reform; there is no revolution that has taken place in health over the last 12 months—just more of the same from this spin-over-substance government. So let us deal with the reality. The reality is that this coalition, had it been in government at this time, would have committed about the same amount of money to this healthcare agreement period as that which was announced by the government. So the policy from a coalition government would have been of the same quantum as has been announced by the federal Labor Party, but the stark difference would have been in relation to the outcomes that are required to be delivered by state governments.

This is a very important point, because this coalition government was determined to get better patient outcomes for all Australians. We wanted to make sure that more people got into public hospitals and more people moved up the waiting lists as quickly as possible. We did not want to see them becoming stale on these public hospital system waiting lists that have been run up over 10 years of state Labor. What I am most concerned about is that, certainly at the moment, this is good money following bad. There is no sense in the Commonwealth throwing good money after bad into a failed state Labor hospital management system.

We want to make sure that you commit the funding but also that you deliver the outcomes to patients; we want to make sure that people in hospitals around the country can receive the sorts of services that nurses, doctors and public hospital officials want to deliver to their patients. The people who work in our hospitals, be they public or private, around the country want good outcomes for Australian patients. They have the same outlook that the federal coalition have. We have committed to providing the funding but we want proper outcomes. We are worried that this is a government, that this is a minister, which is intent on hiding the failings of state Labor governments over the next 10 years as they tried to do over the last 10. The point is, if we do not correct the hospital management practices of people like Reba Meagher in New South Wales and people like Stephen Robertson in Queensland, then we consign ourselves to 10 more years of failed practices in public hospitals.

I mention Reba Meagher not by mistake but because she has become some sort of demigod to the federal Minister for Health and Ageing. Now, ‘Reba’ Roxon, as many people now refer to the current health minister, has presided over a couple of decisions in 12 short months. The first decision was to rip 500,000 people out of the private health system and force them into the public health system. What possible sense could this make? If you had fixed the public hospital system then fair enough—you could move patients; you could transfer patients from the private system into the public system. That is fair enough. But if you have a government that has been complicit with the state Labor governments over the last 10 years in not fixing public hospitals, in not fixing public waiting lists, then why on earth would you force those people onto the public hospital waiting lists to make an overstretched system even worse?

That was the first major health decision by this government in their first 12 months. That was their first and major decision in relation to health—to force 500,000 people into an already stretched public health system. The second and most significant outcome, it seems, from this particular health minister in her first year in office is that she joined and signed up to the Kevin Rudd spin-over-substance policy in relation to health, and that is what will condemn us to bad outcomes. This is a government that when in opposition, as I say, promised big outcomes. In fact, this is a Prime Minister who said on 25 February this year:

… it’s no point just tinkering with the system. We’ve actually got to look at this root and branch, and do it thoroughly …

This was the Prime Minister of the country talking about the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, which is due to report back in June of next year. That is what he talked about in terms of their revolution. Now they have locked in five years of health funding into the out years and they have essentially condemned Christine Bennett’s review to complete irrelevance. And this is the government which has not committed, under the COAG process—which has a five-year horizon—to any imagination whatsoever. This is about providing more money to state governments and not providing health outcomes.

This is the big difference that the Australian people will have at the next election. This is a government that when in opposition promised lots of spin and now they are in government have delivered no substance, while this is a coalition that remains committed to the health system of this country, not just in the private sector but also in public hospitals. We on this side of the House want to make sure that we continue to deliver better health outcomes for all Australians into the 21st century, something that this government, when they adopt the hospital and management practices of their state counterparts, will completely fail to do over the next two years. This is a coalition which will deliver on health, and this is a government which has been condemned by its first 12 months for providing no health outcomes for Australians. (Time expired)

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