Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Breast cancer screenings and X-rays for undergoing screenings have been cut because the Albury Base Hospital cannot pay its bills. The Greater Southern Area Health Service owes the company that provides the X-ray services more than half a million dollars. In a peculiar twist, the health service is threatening legal action over rental arrears owed by the X-ray provider, who cannot pay because he has not received the fees for service. Cutting clinical services like this is disgraceful. The New South Wales government, as we know, and as is further demonstrated by this situation, is approaching bankruptcy.

My purpose today is to demand that Mr Rudd sort out this mess. It was much talked about before he came to government that he would fix the state-federal health divide, the blame game et cetera. He is able to set up a special bank backed by the government with the sole purpose of bailing out the commercial property sector—and funding commercial property interests which might have owed money to foreign banks is quite an extraordinary use of taxpayers’ money—but he cannot step in and sort out the health problems for ordinary Australians in a situation such as this. I call on the government to act.