Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister update the House on the government’s plans to reform the health system through sensible saving measures to ensure its long-term sustainability?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for her question and for her ongoing interest in health reforms. The Rudd government’s health budget this year was all about laying the groundwork for reforming our health system: delivering better services to the community, funding new drugs and expanding successful programs but also making programs fairer and more sustainable in the long term. Unfortunately, the opposition do not seem to have made that connection between funding new programs and demanding that existing ones are fair, are delivering to patients and are providing best value for taxpayer dollars. We all know that health dollars are always scarce and, as the Health Reform Commission has said, business as usual is no longer an option. So the limited funding that we have must be targeted to ensure we get the best bang for our buck. The government believes we owe it to taxpayers to ensure that their hard-earned dollars are being used wisely and support goes to those in the community who need it most.

Yet the government’s measures that are doing just that are being blocked by the opposition. Our changes to ensure that patients, not specialists, get the benefits of taxpayer support are being opposed. Our changes that ensure that we are supporting secretaries who want to take out private health insurance rather than supporting the CEOs who expect us to pay for their private health insurance are also being opposed. We do want to adjust the fees that are paid for cataracts to better reflect the time, true cost and complexity of procedures. But the opposition, instead of arguing for the protection of patients or for taxpayers, want to protect ophthalmologists.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Get an architect to do it.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for O’Connor is interjecting. I know he is particularly interested in people of a certain age needing these cataract procedures, which I understand. What I would like to explain to the member for O’Connor and all members in this House is that, even if our cataract changes are accepted, ophthalmologists will earn, not as their income but just from the Medicare rebates, over half a million dollars on average every year from Medicare, after our cataract changes are supported. But the opposition still want to protect those ophthalmologists, who are going to earn more than half a million dollars a year on average just from Medicare—not from co-payments, not from health insurance, not from private payments.

It is time, we believe, that taxpayers are able to enjoy the dividends that new medical technology and new treatments have brought to patient care in recent years. The opposition cannot expect taxpayers to keep supporting new items and new medicines if they are then blocked from enjoying the benefits and savings that flow from new technology. Nearly $2.5 billion of money that could be better used in health is currently being blocked by the Liberal Party in the Senate.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps those who are interjecting opposite might want to tell us which programs the Liberal Party wants us to stop funding so that they can actually move these measures. Do they want to remove the cancer drug avastin from the PBS, a measure that was only introduced in the budget because these savings measures were expected to be delivered? Perhaps the Liberal Party do not want to fund new regional cancer centres that were promised in the budget. Perhaps they should ask their colleagues in the National Party whether not funding those regional cancer centres is a good idea. Or perhaps the rural health package is what they have got in their sights.

Back at budget time the shadow Treasurer made clear that each and every measure in the budget would be supported with the exception of private health insurance. All of them would be supported. But now we see that the member for Dickson is not backing the shadow Treasurer. It also seems he is not backing the leader. Yesterday he held a press conference at the same time as the Leader of the Opposition, in competition with the Leader of the Opposition. He is not backing sensible health reform, he is not backing sustainability in the health system; he is certainly not backing the constituents in Dickson as he runs off to try for another seat on the Gold Coast. I do have one suggestion for what it seems possible that the member for Dickson is backing, and that is found at Sandown today, horse number 7, race 7. The name of the horse: Cut and Run. That is what the member for Dickson is backing.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. Clearly this answer is no longer relevant to the question, and I would ask you to bring the minister back to the question or sit her down.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will come to a conclusion.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is time for the member for Dickson to back sensible reform, it is time for the member for Dickson to back sustainable reform and it is time for the member for Dickson to start backing his leader and telling those in the Senate to back our budget measures, as they promised in budget week.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I request that the minister table the documents from which she was quoting.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was the minister quoting from a document? No.