Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to put on the record remarks regarding answers to questions today, which I would call 'nonanswers' really, from the Assistant Minister for Health, Senator Nash, to questions that were put by Senator Lines and Senator Ketter. In those questions Senator Lines and Senator Ketter referred to that illustrious group of medicos, the Australian Medical Association. Essentially, what we found the minister saying was: 'Ignore the AMA. Ignore any contrary views. Just trust me. I am the minister. I am telling you the truth.' But what we saw from her was a load of porkies. And we have seen exactly the same performance by Senator Fawcett—who is, I will grant you, a very hardworking senator here in this parliament. Nonetheless, he has denied the fact and denied the reality that in their own budget papers—when they were saying, 'We've got to cut. We've got to save the Australian economy. We've got to slash the costs that we can't bear'—they cut $57 billion from health; that is a fact.

While they dance around the issue and pretend that they have not done that, and talk about 'year-on-year increases', the reality is there was a deal done between the Labor government and the states and territories around this country to properly and adequately fund our hospitals so that we would have reasonable waiting times for people who were seeking elective surgery, so that we would have capacity in emergency departments for people to access the care that they need and so that we would have a safe and sustainable system of funding our hospitals.

Instead of honouring that carefully negotiated and calibrated agreement, this government, on the rise of Tony Abbott, came in and immediately tore up those partnership agreements with every single state and territory. The contempt they showed for Australian people and Australian parliaments and the contempt they showed for those carefully constructed agreements was on display immediately. They banked those cuts when they tore up those agreements with complete contempt for the Australian people and with complete contempt for the fact that Australians deserve access to health. While they were trying to destroy Medicare, that was not enough for them; they have gone after the hospitals as well. How much is the impact of this?

We would like to know what the New South Wales government has to say about it, but we cannot get the New South Wales minister to stand up for anything. She is in the Liberal government, and is in cahoots with this lot over here, and has gone absolutely silent on what they are doing to the New South Wales health system. She has gone quiet, but other states are talking. In an article from 4 November last year, by Julia Medew, the health editor, the headline tells it all: 'Federal health funding cuts equivalent to closing two major Victorian hospitals'. That is the scale of the cuts that we are seeing from this government. That is the impact. You have heard it around the country: health ministers, but not in New South Wales, screaming for assistance from the federal government.

In Victoria, the cuts were so severe, according to Ms Peake, that the growth rate that they expected to increase of 9.4 per cent from 2014 to 2015 did not happen. Instead they got a cut. They said that the continual funding growth—that we heard about from Senator Fawcett—would slow to about 4.3 per cent, which is less than the cost of delivering the services. That is why the comments that we are hearing from the AMA are the truth and why the minister's comments are absolutely a set of misinformation of the Senate.

We are seeing the translation of cuts by this Liberal government into fewer services for patients. We are seeing increasing waiting times in emergency departments for unacceptable periods. We are seeing hospital capacity shrinking. We are seeing doctors who are unable to get their patients into hospital or to keep them there for their own health and wellbeing, or to receive the critical care that they require.

We are seeing exactly what Dr Brian Owler has put on the record. We are seeing that because of the cuts of this government. They cannot be trusted on health. After going after the hospitals, they are also have a real good crack at trying to destroy Medicare and cutting pathology services—making it harder for people with diabetes, with cancer and with chronic illnesses to get the tests that they need to keep them well. In the seat of Robertson, in the seat of Dobell, in the seat of Paterson, in the seat of Riverina, in the seat of Hume—right across New South Wales—this Liberal government have cut funding to hurt the local people— (Time expired)