PM: It's good to be back in Hervey Bay. I was here about three months ago and spent some time in this community and became somewhat familiar with some of the local needs, but it's good to be back today to talk specifically about the needs in this particular health region, and particularly to hear the responses here at the Hervey Bay Hospital.
The people of Hervey Bay will also be able to benefit from the increased financial incentives to attract doctors and to keep them in this region as a result of the incentive payments contained as part of the Rural Health Workforce Strategy. Following the classification of Hervey Bay as inner regional from 1 July, 2010, doctors may be eligible to receive retention grants, for the time, starting at $2,500 after one year and growing to $12,000 after five years. In addition, doctors who move to the Hervey bay area from a major city may be eligible for a relocation grant of $15,000. This, we believe, provides a necessary and additional support for medical practitioners coming here to work; to stay; to live; to become part and parcel of this community.
Today we've also spent some time, as part of our 67th consultation as a government with health and hospital communities across the country, as we've road tested long-reform recommendations for our system for the next quarter of a century. The health reform commission has made many recommendations for system-wide changes for Australian health care, but it's important that we do so in response to the particular feedback of important regions like this.
I'd like to thank all those who attended today's consultation. They have taken time out of their busy schedules to spend time with both the minister and myself, to hear from the coal face; from the specialists; from the GPs; from the director of nursing and from others, about the particular needs of this community, and also the contribution from local council representatives, and also from local members of parliament.
The things is, this challenge for national health and hospital reform should actually be beyond Party politics. It should be something we set our minds on for the next quarter of a century - how do we better plan; how do we better resource; how do we better structure a health and hospital system for the future which meets the expanding needs of the Australian population. Part of that is huge growth areas like this one on the Fraser coast, very much an important part of Australia, and it's important therefore that our proposed reforms are relevant here in a very practical way.
Over to you, folks.
JOURNALIST: Has the Fraser coast health system tipped over?
PM: Well, the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission says that, nationally, the system, the health and hospital system, is at tipping point. Tipping points occur before something tips over, but the right way to look at it is there are deep, structural challenges facing the system nationwide, and that if we don't deal with them structurally for the long term, then there is a danger that the system begins to tip over.
Therefore, rather than just apply a band-aid here, a bit of sticking plaster there, let's actually look at some root-and-branch reform. That's what we've done.
Health professionals across the country have described the Health Reform Commission's report as the most systematic, comprehensive examination and review of the Australian healthcare system since the introduction of Medicare. We therefore should use it and its recommendations to road test with communities like this and go forward, but this is an important community- so many people live here, so many people are moving here - you can understand why, it's such a beautiful part of Australia, but planning for their long-term health needs is as important as it is for the other 750 health communities which make up Australia.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister-
PM: -I'll just take one here, and then over there.
JOURNALIST: On the Traveston Dam, what sort of impact do you think it's going to have for our region, and would you intervene?
PM: Well, the way in which these things are organised nationally is that the Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act, is require to make an independent, unfettered decision on environmental merits of the case put to him concerning this particular proposal. I know Peter Garrett very well. I know he'll attend to that diligently, professionally, independently, and that's as it should be.
I, of course, am familiar with the sensitivities in this region. I grew up not a long way from here, a few hours south, and as a kid used to go swimming in the Mary River, so I know something of how this is felt in the local community, but the processes for decision making are as I've just described, and they are proscribed in Australian law.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you mentioned the GP superclinic. Has anyone tendered for the superclinic in Bundaberg, and how close are we to having that facility?
PM: Firstly, I understand there has been some response to the tender. How many, I can't point to, and that lies properly within the Health Minister's purchase. Secondly, in terms of timelines, I would not wish to be specific, because I don't want to create a false expectation about a delivery which is not honoured. I'd much rather be completely frank with people about when things can be done and when they can be delivered by, but as this gets closer to decision point, then the Minister will of course visit the local community and make it very plain there.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister-
PM: There and there.
JOURNALIST: One of the biggest concerns we hear a lot is that there is so much over-bureaucracy (inaudible), people say that there's such a long way between the decision makers on George Street, for example, where it actually-
PM: I'm told it's Charlotte Street.
JOURNALIST: The funds hands down and actually hits into the areas that they need it. Ideas of local hospital boards have been brought up again. Exactly, is it something that Canberra seems to, like, are looking at actually taking it over some time soon, or is that going to be a bypass, or will it just be purely more funding from Canberra?
PM: Bypass surgery? What do you reckon?
SNOWDON: We could do it.
PM: The debate about bureaucracy is a real one. The debate about maximising resources going to the service delivery point is a real one. It's not an invented debate, it's a real debate, and it should be. There are key things which health policy planners should be doing across an entire system. I referred to some of those in my remarks to the group before. But what we also want to see is within that planning framework is the maximum resources delivered to doctors; to nurses; to allied health professionals; to the provision of hospital beds; to the provision of proper surgical capacity; to provision of proper aged care facilities; etcetera.
This region, as I'm advised, and I stand happy to be corrected, I think has been through a few experiments in recent years about how you might be able to do this. I'm not going to opine from up on high as to which might have been successful and which might have been less successful, but I did say directly in response to one of the local council representatives that we're all ears in terms of how you think this could be done better at a regional or sub-regional level because our experience so far is that many regions are saying to us, across Australia, that they believe with greater clinical decision making and control at the local hospital and local regional level that they can drive the health dollar further.
Now, I'm very interested to hear what the submissions are from here on this, and rather than me just coming over the top say 'this is terrific and that's rotten', I'd much rather get the responses.
Sorry, I interrupted you.
JOURNALIST: Tony Abbot this morning said that the (inaudible). Do you have asylum seekers' blood on your hands?
PM: These remarks reflect, I believe, the fact that neither Mr Turnbull nor the Liberals, despite criticising Government border protection policy, actually have a policy on border protection. If you can't summon the courage to pull together a policy on border protection, then how can anyone expect such a person to have the courage to make the tough and hard decisions on border protection in office.
JOURNALIST: Are they getting out of control, the Opposition? I mean, Mr Abbott's comments come after (inaudible)
PM: I think the remarks reflect, underneath them, a complete absence of border protection policy on the part of Mr Turnbull and the Liberals and the Nationals. It's very easy to criticise. It's much harder to come up with an alternative way of handling this challenge.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, support for Labor has collapsed after (inaudible) the asylum seeker issue. Will the Government revisit its protection policy?
PM: My job as Prime Minister of Australia is not to act as a commentator. My job as Prime Minister of Australia is to act in the Australian national interest, and I'll continue to do so. The decisions we take on border protection policy are taken in the national interest and I know for a fact that they won't be popular, but my job is to take the hard decisions and the tough decisions in the national interest whether they are popular or not.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Our job, as I said, is to act in the national interest and to take tough decisions in the national interest in a very difficult area, and we will take those decisions whether they are popular or not.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Minister, both of you, (inaudible) have both or either of you singled out any issues that think should be acted on ASAP?
PM: Well, our timetable for decision making is, first of all, not hugely removed from now. Remember we've said that we would indicate what the Government's long-term reform decisions would be in the early part of next year, and it's November now.
Secondly, these decisions have brewed and brewed and brewed, for decades and decades and decades under governments of all political persuasions, and our predecessors did not actually rise to the challenge of presenting any blueprint for national health and hospital reform - ever.
The other thing I'd say is this: it's not as if this Government, on health and hospitals, has been sitting on its hands. The fact that we have increased by 50 percent the Australian Government's investment in health and hospital funding to the States in the most recent Australian Healthcare Agreement reflects the direction we're going - that is, increasing the overall allocation from some $40 billion to $60 billion over a five-year period. That amount of money is then available to State governments for deployment across the health and hospital system of the State, including here in the Fraser coast. So our bona fides, if you like, are there, they are upfront, and an extra $20 billion, frankly, is not just a piece of loose change.
JOURNALIST: But you haven't singled out any issues so far that you (inaudible)
PM: Ah, always be wary of hypotheticals.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Our job here, as I said today, said very clearly about what I said at the beginning of our consultation here, here are 132 national recommendations. This is an important hospital, one of the 750 across Australia which will be subject to one or another of these reforms, and why we've come here. And myself as Prime Minister, this is one of 17 consultations that I'm participating in nationwide, which means this community I take personally seriously, and the Australian Government takes all such communities seriously, is to road test those recommendations with these highly qualified health professionals here.
I've listened carefully to what they've said about preventative health care, GP network here and its need for support, listened very carefully in terms of the attitudes which have been reflected in terms of post-acute care, listened vary carefully to the presentations from the representative from the aged care sector as well, as well as the person who spoke on dental care. But you know something? Our job as the Australian Government is to look at long-term, national reforms, how that's funded, how it's structured, and therefore how's that best delivered to communities like this, minimising the bureaucracy, maximising the dollar through to the service delivery point. That, I think, is what the people want from us.
JOURNALIST: Last night, Seven News ran a story (inaudible) Australian-based mining company rorting a village in the Philippines. What's the Government's (inaudible)
PM: I'll need to familiarise myself with the report. The Australian Government would expect all Australian-registered companies to behave responsibly in their national and international behaviour. On the details of this one, I don't have it to hand. Once we get it to hand, then the relevant Minister, I'm sure, will make an appropriate statement.
Australian companies, when they are operating around the world, have to be mindful of, and respectful of, all local laws, all local regulations, including environmental regulations. I would expect and hope that any such Australian company was doing the same, but I do need to familiarise myself with this report.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: First of all, the Reserve Bank, as I'm advised, has not yet made a determination on what it will do on monetary policy today. Second point I would make is that interest rates were reduced by the Reserve Bank to 50-year lows in the extraordinary measures that the Reserve Bank took to help Australia through the global economic crisis. It's a matter, of course, independently, for Reserve Bank, what they do in the future.
For the Australian Government, what have we done in relation to the housing sector? We trebled the first home owners boost. We actually have assisted a large number of first home buyers to enter the market.
Of course, the other thing that we've done, through the Government's stimulus strategy, is to keep hundreds of thousands of Australians in jobs who would otherwise now be unemployed. Look at our unemployment rate and what it's projected to be comparable to any other developed country in the world. I can tell you if you don't have a job it's very difficult when it comes to making other payments, so helping on the overall economic growth front; supporting hundreds of thousands of Australians in jobs, including those who are working as tradies here on the Fraser coast on the carious school projects I have seen, including the one I visited last time, which is the building of a new library out at the Fraser Coast Anglican College - that's important. Also, providing direct support for first home buyers through the grants system we've got.
But the Reserve Bank has brought rates down by four percentage points, rapidly over the course of the last 12 months to 50-year record lows and managing the economic crisis has been a challenge for Australia, for the Government, for the Reserve Bank. Managing Australia's longer-term economic recovery is also a challenge as well.
Got to go.
(ENDS)