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

I have watched some MPIs in this parliament in my time. What normally happens is: the opposition builds up during question time to the MPI because they believe in the MPI. During question time today, I was waiting for the questions on this particular topic—around funding for health services within regional communities. There were 13 questions from the opposition today. But this member opposite could not get one question up—talk about those who are effective in this place—in tactics today to ask of the government on this particular topic.

I will tell you why this shadow minister has been given this MPI: it is because he has no capacity to get questions up in question time. They have said to him: 'So ineffective are you that we will not allow you to ask a question in question time. We will give you the MPI, as some sort of sop.' That is what has happened here today. It has nothing to do with passion or interest in this particular topic. It is because we have a completely ineffective shadow minister in this area.

He represents the great seat of Throsby. It is a good area—no question about that—but is it a patch on the area that is represented by members from the Nationals or from the LNP or from the Liberal Party on this side of parliament? No, not in terms of regional services and delivering to those on the land. When you compare the shadow minister for regional health with the Assistant Minister for Health in the other place, the Assistant Minister for Health in the other place would run rings around this shadow minister, and she does so on a regular basis. He has no capacity to carry this argument. He has no capacity to get a question up in question time, so he is given this second-rate opportunity on the MPI after question time. It says more about him than it does about anything else.

I will tell you what the Labor Party is dominated by. They are dominated by union thugs on the front bench from start to finish. They do not have any impact on regional services or in regional areas because they do not come from those areas. That is the reality in this place. They might say that they represent rural interests, but they do not; they represent capital city interests and, in particular, they represent the interests of the people who control them on a daily basis—that is, the union bosses. The union bosses do not have any interest in regional and rural areas, let alone rural and regional health in this place. These people demonstrate this incapacity on a daily basis.

I will tell you what that means: it means that all of the Labor Party policies are concentrated on the bureaucracy in health, and that has been demonstrated at a state and territory level over the course of the last decade or so. Labor, to please the union bosses, pumps money into health bureaucracies and away from health services—not just in capital cities but, most importantly, in rural and regional areas. That is what happens in Labor governments. It happens at a state level, which is why we see monumental failure in NSW health under Labor governments. It is why we see huge problems in Queensland health with outrages like the Doctor Patel case; with money being diverted away from front-line services into IT systems. It is because the Labor Party has no interest outside of the union movement. That is why there is such a big divide between the modern Labor Party and people in outer metropolitan areas and people working hard in rural and regional areas.

We know it was demonstrated at a federal level over the course of the last six years, because the Labor Party built up the numbers in the health bureaucracy. Why? Not because they wanted to deliver additional services to regional areas or remote or Indigenous communities, but because they wanted to please union bosses in capital cities. That is what happened. Not only did they build up the numbers in the federal bureaucracy; they also built the number of agencies up to 21—that is, 21 outside agencies attached to the health department in addition to the additional bureaucrats. What did that do? It starved money from rural and regional areas. That is what happened under Labor's watch. So we are not going to sit here and be lectured to by some second-rate shadow minister who cannot get a question up in question time.

If you look at what we have done since we have come to government, we have increased money in this budget, in the health portfolio, each and every year. The Labor Party is running around trying to run some scare campaign—saying that we are taking money out of hospitals or we are taking it out of the MBS—but the opposite is the case. We are increasing the amount of money that we have put into public hospitals across the country. We are increasing the amount of money that we put into the MBS across services, and we are doing it in a sustainable way. That is the big difference between those opposite and those people on this side of the parliament. These people who are representing regional areas come from real backgrounds not from ivory towers in every union office across the country. They are people who have come from the land. They are people who have worked hard in small business. They are people who have employed other Australians and they have accessed those health services in regional areas. That is why they will always have more passion about rural communities than those people opposite, who pretend that they have interests in rural and regional areas.

When you look at the facts of what we are doing in relation to rural and regional health, let me say to you: this government promised, as part of the election commitment, $40 million over four years to create additional intern training capacity in private hospitals—and rural and regional focus in particular—76 interns already trained in 2014. We have provided $13.4 million to an additional 500 scholarships for nursing and allied health professionals, targeting rural professionals. We have provided $238 million over four years to double the practice incentive payment for teaching and general practice. We have provided $52½ million for infrastructure grants to build on teaching and supervision, where? In the rural and regional medical workforce. That is the focus of this government. That is what makes Minister Nash in the other place a very effective Assistant Minister for Health. That is why we have put additional money including into the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Labor was building up bureaucracies in Canberra to please its Labor bosses and its puppet masters while it was taking money away from rural services. We have put $6 million into the Royal Flying Doctor Service to enable it to increase the services it provides to rural and remote locations. We have undertaken to have a look at the classification scheme so that, wherever possible, we can get more doctors and allied health professionals out of capital cities and into regional, rural and Indigenous communities. We are committed to those outcomes. What did the Labor Party do? It built up to 21 outside agencies—it is unbelievable when you contemplate it—all with separate administration and leasing, all with cars, all with PR people, all with accountants and with all their overheads. It was taking money away from the capacity of government to be able to make the sorts of investments that we announced in the budget and in the lead up to the last election.

They can be no choice for people in rural communities at the next election, because this government has demonstrated its commitment, which failed Labor over the course of its six years in government. People not just in the cities but in the bush know that this is a government that will get on with getting money back to frontline health services. We increase money going into hospitals in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, WA, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory over the course of the forward estimates and we are very proud of that. We are very proud that that includes putting money into regional areas. In this year's budget we allocate $13.8 billion to hospitals across the states and territories. By 2017-18 that figure will have grown to $18.8 billion. That is an increase from 2013-14 to 2017-18 of just over $5 billion. That is a 36 per cent increase.

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