Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak in this matter of public importance debate today because I am proud of our government's record on health. I congratulate the Minister for Health and the Minister for Aged Care on their incredible work in this portfolio. They are doing an excellent job of listening to what the Australian people need. Like the ministers, I'm also listening to my community and my local residents as to what they need on health. Because we are listening I worked very closely with the Minister for Health to see the delivery of a national action plan and, so far, more than $4.7 million of federal funding towards endometriosis. Minister Wyatt joined me in my electorate to listen to senior members of my community talk about the issues that are most important to them, and we are working with them as well to deliver in the aged-care space.

It is unsurprising that those opposite want to talk down our contribution to health, but our record speaks for itself. We are achieving record funding for our healthcare system in Australia. In the 2018-19 budget we announced a $2.4 billion investment for new medicines to be listed on the PBS, including $1 billion set aside for the provision of future medicines. In fact, since coming to government we have listed, on average, one new medicine per day. These are often lifesaving medications. So far we've had an overall investment of $9 billion, which is a very significant investment.

Federal funding for public hospitals under the coalition has increased from $13.3 billion in 2013-14 to a record $22.7 billion in 2020-21. This is a 70 per cent increase. Under a new national hospitals agreement, the government has committed an additional $30.2 billion in public hospital funding from 2020-21 to 2024-25, taking overall funding during this period to $130 billion. This means more hospital services, more doctors, more nurses and increased funding every year for every state and territory. This is what responsible governments do.

In stark comparison, those opposite have a terrible track record on health both at the state and federal levels. Nobody knows this better than I do, because I come from the state of South Australia where we saw the state Labor government make one of the most disgraceful decisions of their 16 years in government when they decided to shut down the iconic Repat Hospital. This was devastating to veterans not just in my community but across South Australia.

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