Thank you very, very much Bruce for those of words of introduction, the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, my Coalition colleague and friend Mark Vaile. Lawrence Springborg, the leader of the Opposition here in Queensland, the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman, my fellow Australians. Can I say as I sat and listened to Bruce and listened to him clinically analyse the failings of the health system here in Queensland, I thought to myself, it's not a bad combination handing over the management of this State to a farmer and a doctor.
Like no other group of Australians, farmers understand adversity, they know how to overcome it, and they go on when others give up. Doctors understand like no other group, issues of life and death in our community. So I commend very warmly for those and many other reasons the leadership team of the Coalition here in Queensland. As I reflect, on the state of Queensland politics, I think of the state of our nation. I think of the fact that we have a 30-year low in unemployment, we've had eight successive Federal budget surpluses. We have interest rates which are close to half of what they were 15 years ago. And now in our 16th successive year of economic expansion we have a growth rate of around three per cent and we have paid off $96 billion of Labor debt. So the state of the nation is strong and healthy and optimistic. And the relevance of all of that is of course that the bounty of those economic good times is being shared, properly as it should be, around the different parts of Australia. And there is no state in Australia that has done better out of taxation reform and the GST than the State of Queensland. It still astonishes many Queenslanders I speak to, to be told that close to 50 per cent, indeed some 46 to 47 per cent of all the revenue in one way or another, that flows into the Queensland Budget comes from the Federal Government. And the point I make about all of this is not that Queenslanders aren't entitled to it, they are entitled to every last dollar of that money, but they are entitled to see it spent more wisely than it has been over the last ten years.
And they are also entitled to a better quality of service, and in no area are they more entitled to that better quality of service, than in the area of health. I would say to the Premier of Queensland Mr Beattie, Mr Beattie there are no alibis in your failings in health. You can't and you shouldn't blame the Federal Government. You can't and you shouldn't blame the medical profession, you only have yourself to blame. You've had the money, you've had the resources, you've had the power, you've had the years to fix it, and it hasn't been. And over the past ten years all the great reforms have come from the federal level. You used to complain about bulk billing. Well we've done dramatic changes in that area, we haven't talked about it, we haven't put out a plan for bulk billing we've actually fixed the decline in bulk billing. We introduced a Medicare safety net, it was opposed by Mr Beattie's federal colleagues. It's still their policy to rip up the Medicare safety net. We've introduced with our $1.9 billion commitment in the area of mental health, we've introduced a long term programme. It's started, the money is beginning to be spent in that area, and we await a full matching of that expenditure by the various state governments around Australia.
I mention these things my friends to make the very simple and very relevant point that I hope all Queenslanders will ponder over the next few days and that is if you have a strong national economy, if you have an economy performing better than it has at any time since the end of World War II, if you have a Federal Government to stave off our national debt, if you have the lowest unemployment level in 30 years, if you have tax reform that has provided untold additional billions of dollars to the states of Australia. If you have a Federal Government that has met all of its responsibilities in the health area, it really produces one very obvious fact and that is that the weaknesses and failures of the health system, and if there is anything that state governments have got to be ultimately responsible for, and accountable for, is the basic infrastructure of the public hospital system of the state.
To say that a state government is not totally responsible for the public hospital system of the state is to say that the Federal Government is not responsible, ultimately for the defence of the country. We may have a fragmented federation, we may have blurred areas of responsibilities, but at the end of the day governments have got to be accountable for their failures in areas which are clearly and overwhelmingly their areas of responsibility. And please, and I say this to my fellow Australians who live in Queensland, please don't encourage Mr Beattie to do it all again by returning him. Please bear in mind that elections are meant to be about accountability, they are meant to be about the public looking at what you have done, and making a judgement as to whether you are worthy of being returned, and in this vital area of health alone, this Government has clearly failed the people of Queensland.
Mark and I have come here today to support Lawrence and Bruce, we have come here today to support the Liberal and National parties here in Queensland, united in a State Coalition. We come as leaders of the most successful federal Coalition Government this country has seen. It's been a united cohesive, effective Coalition Government, and I am sure under the leadership of Lawrence and Bruce, the Coalition can give to the people of Queensland, united, cohesive, effective Coalition Government.
Lawrence Springborg is a true Queenslander, he's a man of the land, he's a person who's given his all to public life in this State, and as well as with his family, running his farm and raising his family. On this Father's Day, I can say he is the epitome of a Queensland father with his children here, and he knows that the most important thing you do in life, is to look after your family. And I know that if he is elected Premier of Queensland next Saturday, he will care for his State with the same passion and commitment with which he cares for his family. Would you welcome Lawrence Spring, the Leader of the Opposition in Queensland.
[ends]