Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How is the government investing in the future of the national health system and are there any impediments to this investment continuing?

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

I thank the member for Franklin for that question, particularly as she and the Prime Minister have just announced recently in Hobart an extra investment of $3½ million in the Royal Hobart Hospital emergency department as part of the $750 million investment in emergency departments. I know that, similarly, the member for Braddon was pleased when $3.7 million of that money was earmarked to be spent at the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie.

We of course are investing more in health than any other government. At the same time we know that health costs are rising, so we do need to take action to protect the long-term sustainability of the health budget and to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely and fairly. We have invested an extra $20 billion through the healthcare agreement, because we could see patients suffering after the Howard government starved public hospitals of funds for many years.

I am asked also if there is a risk to these investments. There certainly is not any risk from our government. We are absolutely determined to invest in health, and our determination is unwavering. The same cannot be said, however, for those opposite. The shadow Treasurer, for example, is on the record as saying that he would not have invested this money in health, telling the Australian just after COAG that he would not have made the generous $15.1 billion Council of Australian Governments deal. The shadow finance minister has refused to rule out any health cuts. This morning the Leader of the Opposition finally got around to admitting that he had cut money from the health budget. I have to tell you, though, that the Leader of the Opposition did not want to actually call it a cut but he did admit it. I want to read, for the benefit of the House, what the Leader of the Opposition said on 2GB this morning, because, for those of you who missed the interview, it was a real ripper and does need to be recorded. I quote from the Leader of the Opposition:

Um, the forward estimates were reduced by a billion dollars.

Was that money going to public hospitals ever reduced?

No, it was not, but the rate of growth, ah, of funding, was decreased and that is why Kevin Rudd keeps repeating that he’s ripped a billion dollars out of health. I did not rip a billion dollars out of health. Um, the rate of growth just slowed somewhat.

So this is straight-talking Tony for you. I think it must be special code for people who find economics boring—a cut here, a cut there—but I suppose it is all the same to the Liberal Party. What the budget papers make absolutely clear is that hundreds of millions of dollars appeared with a minus in front of them, and pretty clearly that is what old fashioned economists, like Peter Costello, called a budget cut. Even if the Leader of the Opposition wants to call it just a ‘ah, funding decrease’ or ‘a reduction in the forward estimates’ or ‘um, the rate of growth slowing somewhat’, that is a billion dollars, it is this man’s legacy and he cannot be trusted to be the Prime Minister.