Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. How has the government’s health reform plan been received by the community?

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

I thank the member for Shortland for her question. She was a member of the cross-parliamentary committee in the last parliament that delivered the Blame game report, a very important report which the national plan that was released last week deals with—and which the previous government neglected to respond to. The National Health and Hospitals Network announced by the Prime Minister last week has been shaped and informed by the work of the ‘blame game’ committee that the member for Shortland and others were part of, the detailed work of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and the work of health professionals, front-line doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and, most importantly, the community—the people who are the patients in our health and hospital system.

This plan will make all Australians stakeholders in the reform of our health system. The Prime Minister, other ministers and I conducted more than 100 consultations across the country following the release of the reform commission’s report, to road test the recommendations of the report and to seek the views of staff and patients on the front line. It is why we have developed a plan where the health system is funded nationally but run locally. The response from stakeholders, which I have been asked about, has been very enthusiastic. The AMA, the ANF, the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association and the Business Council of Australia are just some of the key stakeholders who have backed the National Health and Hospitals Network.

This network is a bold reform. Like all health reform, we know that it will unleash much debate. The government welcomes this debate. After more than a decade of complete inaction and neglect of health reform by the former government, it is well overdue. This is why it is disappointing, but not particularly surprising, that the Liberal Party has chosen to oppose our plan from the outset. As I think some other ministers have already mentioned, Mr Abbott said in December that he was going to oppose any health reform—

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

Order! The minister will refer to members by their parliamentary titles.

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

I beg your pardon. He was the Leader of the Opposition, but only just, in December. That would make up for my mistake. The Leader of the Opposition, as he now is, said that he would oppose any health reform plan that was released by the government. He has no intention of playing any constructive role in health reform. He did not do so as minister and he clearly is not going to now as opposition leader. When it comes to health reform, I fear he is a leopard who cannot change his spots.

The Leader of the Opposition, when he was the health minister, did see some of these problems. In fact, he is on the record as having called our health system and its funding arrangements a ‘dog’s breakfast’, but he took no action to fix any of the problems. I do have to confess to the parliament that when I was in opposition I used to wonder how the health minister had time—in fact, weeks at a time—to go off on bike rides around the country and to actually do his job. Now, as the health minister, I have uncovered the answer to that. It is simply because the Leader of the Opposition was not actually doing his day job. He was never interested in health reform. He had plenty of time to go off bike riding, just as he has had plenty of time to be out playing Leyland brothers this week—

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order on relevance. I do not think it is appropriate to slur somebody who is raising money for charity in this place.

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

I am sure that there are a lot of people on this side of the House who would pay a lot of money to not see Tony in his lycra ever again.

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

Mr Pyne interjecting

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

Order! The minister is not assisting. The minister must refer to members by their titles. These asides are not assisting. The minister will respond to the question. The Manager of Opposition Business will assist himself by not interjecting on everything that happens in this place.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I was asked about the community response and the broader response to our health reform plan. Because the Leader of the Opposition was away last week in Central Australia, he left the shadow health spokesperson in charge of the Liberal Party’s response. Of course, this was always going to be a risky thing to do. The member for Dickson’s first response was to claim that doctors and nurses spent all their days on Facebook. This was an absolute insult to hardworking doctors and nurses, and he should be ashamed of himself for having that as his first response. To the member for Dickson’s credit, he then actually bothered to read the plan that had been announced, and he told 2UE and 2SM last Friday, ‘There are parts of this that are positive and that we could support.’ I would like to ask the member for Dickson or the Leader of the Opposition to tell us which parts they are.

The Leader of the Opposition returned from his time in Central Australia to declare that in fact he opposes all of the package. We are struggling to understand what the opposition’s alternative health policy is. Of course, there are many of us on this side of the House who remember what this Leader of the Opposition’s approach to health reform was when he was a minister. I do not think there is anyone on this side of the House who cannot remember the Mersey hospital. At the previous election, the then Minister for Health and Ageing had a plan for one hospital. Now that plan has been vastly expanded. The Leader of the Opposition now has a plan for about 20 or 30 hospitals, some in Queensland and some in New South Wales—not even 10 per cent of our public hospitals. This just is not good enough. He also said that he wants to revisit local hospital boards, to have every single hospital compete with each other for staff and for funding. This is a policy that is so far past its use-by date that the Leader of the Opposition should have left it in Fossil Creek, where he was last week, because that is where it belongs. He needs to come clean with the public. He needs to tell us what his view is on health reform. He was not prepared to reform the health system when he was the minister for nearly five years. Now he is the Leader of the Opposition and he should get out of our way and let us do the job in the nation’s interest.