Subject:
Hospitals; autism
E&OE...
JONES:
Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
It is a critical issue isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look, it's a hugely critical issue and we've put a lot of work into preparing this announcement I am going to make and I would like to say something about it. But can I just, before I do that, can I just make a very, very strong point about the current debate that is going on regarding public hospitals in New South Wales. In a few weeks time, and we don't know the exact date, the whole of the nation will decide whether it wants to add a federal Labor Government to state Labor Governments all over the country. And particularly addressing the people of Sydney and the people of New South Wales that have a Labor Government, I just ask the simple question of them. Do they really want duplicated at a federal level the appalling mismanagement that's occurring at a state level in areas such as public hospitals and public transport? I mean these are bread and butter responsibilities of government.
And you ask me, you know, what will a re-elected Howard Government be like? I can point to what we have done over the last 11 years, our failures as well as our successes and people know us. But in areas like health, how anybody could think that electing a federal Labor Government which will duplicate the failure at a state level of the Iemma Government escapes me because this mismanagement of public hospitals in New South Wales is a disgrace and the level of the disgrace becomes more apparent every day. And what Mr Rudd is in effect asking us to do is to limp along with the same approach and in fact make it worse at a federal level. Now I am sorry to interrupt you, but I just felt it was something that it was something that had to be said in those terms.
JONES:
Okay, well that's, there would be many people out there I can tell you what, who would share those sentiments. It's just extraordinary. I mean they're just reiterating the Prime Minister's point. The State Health Minister Reba Meagher last night said that the public health system was at breaking point and there was a whole heap of senior doctors yesterday who talked about the failure of officials to listen to clinicians. And indeed Dr Bishop, a Dr Rod Bishop, who is the head of emergency at Nepean Hospital and he's a Nurse Unit Manager as well, he said the Nepean Emergency Department was straining under the pressure of being staffed by junior locum doctors. He said half his doctors are inexperienced. This is the hospital system. I would hope that the public wouldn't need such a warning from the Prime Minister. Autism, PM, are you on the line of the autistic child or the carer?
PRIME MINISTER:
Both. Now what we have in mind is a new policy approach that provides a number of things. We're going to provide Medicare funded services to diagnose autism and provide specific follow up services. We're going to provide support for early intervention services. There are approximately 15,000 families of children aged up to six years. Now this early intervention is expensive and critical and parents do need help. We're going to provide training and support so that parents and carers and in most cases its one and the same, are better equipped to assist their young children. And we're going to provide workshops and information sessions to parents and carers and also professional development for some 450 teachers and other school staff each year. Now the description which you gave before our interview commenced was both accurate and moving. It's a condition that we know a lot more about now than we did a few years ago. It's one of those conditions that people have learned more about as time has gone by and I hope the policy I announce today; and it's going to be announced by me and a number of my colleagues in different parts of the country, I hope it will be a very substantial response to the problem. Now obviously as in all of these things there will always be more needed and I understand that, but this tackles both the analysis of the extent of the autistic condition but it also provides very necessary early intervention. I don't pretend to know, or be an expert on the subject, but what I have learned about it in recent months tells me that the earlier and the more intensively intervention occurs, the greater is the likelihood that the child can end up leading a normal or near to normal life.
JONES:
Prime Minister, does your health, your Federal Health Department, do we have any kind of audit of this? Do we know how many there are, where they are and how old they are? Because of course the tragedy with this; and so many parents write to me is, when these children, they're often very big and they grow and they get older and they're difficult because behavioural patterns are difficult to regulate and mums and dads are growing older with them and find them increasingly difficult to look after?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes, that's the tragic...I think the answer is both yes and no. One of the problems with autism is that the understanding of it a decade or more ago is not as great as it is now and therefore early intervention didn't occur as much then. And even if it was identified people couldn't afford it, and that's one of the key elements, to provide much greater access to a range of early intervention services. I mean that's...all of our advice and all of what I've heard from the experts is that the earlier you can intervene and I do know of people who have been able, in a financial position to do it, they've had very intensive early intervention services and that has made an enormous difference. But not everybody, indeed most people are not able to afford that. That's why we need a publicly funded group approach to this problem and we're certainly going to do that. And when I, and I will be talking in much more detail about the program when I actually announce it, I haven't formally announced it yet, but I will be doing that later.
JONES:
Can I just turn the coin over a little bit, because for every one of those people you're talking about the autistic child there has to be a carer and these are often people and they love their children, that's the one thing about autistic children, they love them. Now is there a prospect that you might do something in the immediate future about carers collectively because they're not just looking after autistic children, they're looking after disabled children, the mentally ill? Sometimes it's a parent who might be a cancer sufferer or whatever and I have got figures here that there are about 2.6 million of these people nationally doing about $31 billion worth of work for the community. Do we need a renewed focus on carers?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have had a focus on carers. We have had a focus on carers in the Budget for the last five years. We've had a focus on carers in the additional $1.9 billion I announced in June which took over a lot of the responsibilities that have previously been discharged by the states. Now I don't want to, at this stage, speculate on any further things in that area.
JONES:
Could I suggest to you, for example, a carer, as you know, is on welfare by definition...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JONES:
Whatever that welfare might be, therefore is not eligible for superannuation. Would it be a nice gesture to those people who not by choice are out of the workforce, if we introduced a superannuation scheme for carers who receive Centrelink support, where Government would contribute to the scheme in the same way that employers contribute for the employee and therefore there is something for retirement beyond just the carer's payment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Alan, that's in its own right a very nice idea. I don't, it's not the sort of idea that one would ever criticise. It's a question of where it might take its place amongst a lot of pieces of advice and sound ideas that are put forward and I can't do more than say it would certainly be a very, very strong gesture in relation to carers.
JONES:
Okay, and so that announcement later on...
PRIME MINISTER:
This announcement will be made at about half past nine.
JONES:
Good on you.
PRIME MINISTER:
In Brisbane.
JONES:
Okay. All right, thank you Prime Minister for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you. Bye, bye.
[ends]