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

Confronted with this problem, the former government did not fix it. What they said was, 'We'll provide six months of funding to chemotherapy patients.' That took it up to Christmas last year. They sat on it for six months. They provided great uncertainty for those patients—and not just those patients but their families as well. The most shameful thing was that there was not one dollar of provision made to provide those services from 1 January on. We put pressure on the government of the day. It was a problem of the government's own creation, but instead of fixing it they continued the uncertainty. I promise the Australian people and those patients this: this government will listen to their problems. This government will fix this problem. This government will deal with the difficulty that the Labor Party created. We will provide certainty to chemotherapy patients across the country and their families. Labor created a mess—not just of the economy but of health as well.

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