ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ANTHONY SCHEMBRI – CEO, ST VINCENT’S HOSPITAL SYDNEY:
Good morning everybody and welcome to the St Vincent’s Healthcare Campus. My name’s Anthony Schembri – I am the hospital chief. It gives me great pleasure to welcome our special guests, the Prime Minister, Minister Hunt and Professor Kelly from the Heart Foundation to our campus on International Nurses Day and to begin our proceedings I would like to invite the Prime Minister to please say some words.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much Anthony. It is wonderful to be here at St Vincent’s on International Nurses Day and to see the extraordinary work done by the medical team here, the doctors and nurses, here saving lives.
And the budget this year is delivering for health. What we are doing is guaranteeing Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Every year, the money needed to pay for Medicare and the PBS will go into the Medicare Guarantee Fund, and it will have the first call on the Government's revenues, guaranteeing it, securing it for Australians, just as we are guaranteeing the funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme for the first time, ensuring that by increasing the Medicare levy by 0.5 per cent, we will have that vitally important disability insurance scheme fully funded, so we will be able to say to the parents of a disabled child the support for your child is always going to be there. It is paid for. It is secured.
Our budget is a fair budget. It is fair because it brings the budget back into balance.
It's fair because it guarantees Medicare and the PBS.
It is fair because it secures funding for schools, that is national, needs-based, as David Gonski recommended, consistent and transparent, vitally important.
And it is fair because we continue to invest in new life-saving medicines. $1.2 billion committed to new life-saving medicines, including Entresto. We were just talking with Professor Hayward and David Brown a moment ago about that, about what that means for him, as a patient with a chronic heart disease. Life saving and benefits 60,000 Australians. And we have listed 1,400 life-saving drugs like that on the PBS since we came into government.
During Labor's time, they rationed it, they restricted the listings, and only about 300 were listed.
When they are recommended for listing, we put them on the list, and we can do that and we can afford to do it because we're managing the budget responsibly.
And as you know, by the end of the Forward Estimates, by 2021, we will have the budget back into surplus. So again, a mark of the fairness of the budget, we're not throwing a mountain of debt onto the shoulders of our children and grandchildren.
This is a great day, International Nurses Day. It is a great day because the budget is a great budget for health. And I now ask the Minister for Health to say some more about the achievements for health and securing the prospects for our children and grandchildren to lead healthier and more active lives that come out of this budget.
MINISTER FOR HEALTH:
Thanks very much, Prime Minister, to Anthony, to Chris, to John. This is a great budget for health, and I'm particularly pleased to talk about it today as the son of a nurse and as the husband of a nurse, I'm delighted to say happy International Nurses Day.
I also want to say, though, that we set out to achieve four things for health in this budget.
To guarantee Medicare and the PBS, which we've done.
To support our hospitals, which we've done with $2.8 billion of additional funding.
To support mental health and preventative health, which we've done with a half a billion-dollar package, in particular supporting psycho-social services outside of the NDIS.
And to invest in medical research at extraordinary institutions such as St Vincent's, the Victor Chang, the Garvan Institute, which we've done with a $1.4 billion investment.
In relation to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, as the Prime Minister said, we've allocated $1.2 billion for new and life-saving drugs, and this means that we can do things such as listing Kalydeco, which we did only last week. Cystic fibrosis care for children between two and six, who could not have afforded a drug that would have $300,000. No ordinary family has any hope ever of funding and supporting a drug like that which can save the lives of their children as we heard today from some of our magnificent medical professionals.
And today we are meeting the patients who are benefitting from Entresto - a drug which will help 60,000 patients around the country, which would otherwise have been beyond the reach of so many of them and that drug can save lives and protect lives. We are investing half a billion dollars in Entresto. We're doing it because we’ve been able to strike the agreement with Medicines Australia, which allows us to support the PBS, so we will never do what Labor did, when they held back previous drugs from Australian patients.
We are also launching the Prime Minister's Walk For Life initiative - a million steps is the goal to bring 300,000 people in. We are supporting the Heart Foundation with a grant of $10 million to assist in that, and that will bring older Australians, schoolkids, those who might otherwise need to work against the challenges of obesity and inactivity, to get them involved in a communal way with that walking.
I would now like to introduce Professor Chris Hayward to talk briefly about Entresto and Professor John Kelly from the Heart Foundation to talk about The Healthy Heart Initiative and the Prime Minister's Walk for Life.
PROFESSOR CHRIS HAYWARD - CARDIOLOGIST, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL SYDNEY:
Thank you Minister, thank you Prime Minister. Entresto is a heart failure drug. Heart failure is a condition where the heart is not pumping strongly enough and people can’t live their normal lives without getting short of breath or tired and can't do the normal things. Entresto allows them to do more and importantly also decreases mortality and decreases hospitalisation. So the cost benefit for the government is that patients will not only feel better, but hopefully stay out of hospital and be living longer, and by any mark, that's a good mark for a drug.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much, Chris.
John, now, walking – we've made great progress in public health in Australia with smoking, haven't we? Smoking rates have come down?
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR JOHN KELLY AM – CEO, THE HEART FOUNDATION:
We certainly have.
PRIME MINISTER:
And the next big challenge is to get Australians to be more active, to reduce obesity, and walking is a great way to do that?
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR JOHN KELLY AM:
Physical activity and obesity are the two biggest challenges for the community. It's almost a tsunami coming through. So your $10 million on Budget night is a great initiative. It will be well spent. We currently have a footprint around the country where we can tap into 300,000 schoolkids through our Jump Rope for Heart programme and we have access to about 2,000 schools – so that will be a, a beginning of a platform. We are going to use community pharmacies, GP practices, primary health care networks.
PRIME MINISTER:
Get people walking – more walking groups like the one we met with Happy Heart?
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR JOHN KELLY AM:
Absolutely - Happy Heart will be involved – he’s a popular figure.
But just some of the issues in respect of physical inactivity - cuts your risk of heart attack and stroke by 35 percent, cuts the risk of colon cancer by 30 per cent - just that extra 30 minutes walking a day, it cuts your risk of Type II diabetes by a massive 42 per cent. It is free, it is easy, it is sociable.
PRIME MINISTER:
That's fantastic.
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR JOHN KELLY AM:
It's great.
PRIME MINISTER:
That's the plan. So more walking, healthier, more active Australia.
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR JOHN KELLY AM:
Move more, sit less.
PRIME MINISTER:
Move more, sit less – that’s right! Fantastic.
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR JOHN KELLY AM:
Certainly your imprimatur, in terms of your awards, handout for the millions, we’ll get those moving and we’ll monitor those in terms of some type of technology so we can keep an eye on people.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, that's right, so it will hopefully become mildly competitive.
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR JOHN KELLY AM:
Well we're outcome-driven of course.
PRIME MINISTER:
Outcome-driven, very good!
Alright, we can take some questions now for Greg and myself and the doctors and professors, if you like.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, on the question of the levy to fund the NDIS, are you open at all to a Labor proposition to exempt workers on lower tax rates from it?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have a very fair proposition. We are confident that the Senate will approve it. We call on the Labor Party to support it, and we call on Bill Shorten to be consistent. I know that that is aspirational, I know. But nonetheless, I'm being very positive and aspirational about Mr Shorten. Only a few years ago, he said that anyone who did not support an increase in the Medicare levy by half a per cent, this is during the Gillard government, to go towards funding the NDIS was dumb. He said it was so obvious, and he called on the Coalition to support it, and the Coalition did. And what we are saying no you is we know - and he has admitted in his budget reply, that the NDIS is not fully funded. I mean, he has admitted that.
So let's fully fund it. It protects every Australian. Let's ensure that the Medicare levy is increased by half a per cent. It is fair. Obviously people on the lower incomes pay much less because it is half a per cent of income. People on higher incomes pay a lot more, so it is fair, it is consistent.
And what it will mean is it will take the funding of the National Disability Insurance Scheme out of politics. Let's depoliticise this. Let's just pay for it.
You know, the time has come to pay for the Disability Insurance Scheme and the best way to do that is transparently through that levy. So it would be 1 per cent of the Medicare levy's 2.5 per cent that would go to the NDIS, and I think that's fair.
JOURNALIST:
On drug testing of welfare recipients Prime Minister, have you talked to any doctors or experts in the area with relation to this policy or trial? Have they informed this decision or is it just talking to someone like George Christensen who has been going on about this for a long time?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think it's pretty obvious that welfare money should not be used to buy drugs, and if you love somebody who is addicted to drugs, if you love somebody whose life is being destroyed by drugs, don't you want to get them off drugs? Don't you want to reach out and help them? And what this trial will do - I hope it is a big success and if so it will roll out further - but imagine if this could make a change in people's lives so they were not taking drugs, so they were not destroying their lives, so they were not destroying the lives of their families, so they were not making themselves unemployable.
If you love somebody who is addicted to drug, then you would do everything you can to get them off drugs.
This is a policy that is based on love, and a commitment to support Australians.
JOURNALIST:
What about facts though? Is it based on science and facts or medicine, or is it just based on love?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is based on the plain commonsense - which apparently we don't share - but it is plainly sensible, rational, compassionate to ensure as far as possible, that people are not addicted to drugs, and certainly welfare payments should not be used to buy drugs.
Now, you may disagree with that. I believe that Greg and I and our Government stand with the vast majority of Australians in saying that people who are on welfare and are addicted to drugs, should be helped to get off those drugs.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, just back to the Medicare levy - could you say, firstly, does the increase in the Medicare levy disproportionately put the burden on higher-income earners, as some reports have said today? Secondly, Andrew Leigh has said repeatedly today that the NDIS under Labor was fully funded. Could you comment on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the NDIS under Labor was not fully funded. That is absolutely clear, it plainly wasn't. They went to the last election promising $16.5 billion of larger deficits. So Labor, the difficulty with Labor is they spend the same money again and again. The Labor Party is not capable of living within its means.
Now, this Budget of ours, yes, it does raise, it increases the Medicare levy, it imposes a levy on banks. There are revenue-raising measures there.
But what it does is it secures fair, needs-based school funding.
It secures Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, it secures the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
It secures the life-saving drugs and the mental health services that Greg spoke about, the research.
It is a budget that secures the essential services Australians need, and in doing so, provides the security they deserve.
But above all, it is a fair budget.
One of the great hallmarks of that fairness is that when you get to 2020/21, we are in surplus $7.4 billion and the debt will start to come down.
JOURNALIST:
Have you seen the footage of Miriam Merten?
PRIME MINISTER:
Sorry, I’ll ask Greg to deal with that.
MINISTER FOR HEALTH:
Yes, I have. It is deeply distressing. It is utterly unacceptable. I have spoken with the New South Wales Minister Brad Hazzard this morning. They have taken strong steps, I understand, that those who were involved at the time are no longer in service, but he has our full support and the New South Wales Government has our full support for the strongest possible steps against what was completely unacceptable.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, this is a bigger problem, though, isn't it? This isn't only just happening in Lismore Hospital? Directed at the Prime Minister-
MINISTER FOR HEALTH:
I will speak briefly, just to say that we need stronger mental health services with is precisely why we added $173 million to mental health services, in conjunction with the mental health sector. We discussed what was required and I would say that this case is extraordinary and completely unacceptable.
PRIME MINISTER:
Let me just add to this.
My Government has made record investments into mental health and that has been acknowledged by the leaders in the field, including Ian Hickey and Pat McGorry and others.
Now, Ian Hickey, Professor Ian Hickey, has got a very good way of framing this issue, and he talks about the mental wealth of nations. All of us have a vested interest in every other Australian’s mental health. Mental illness is debilitating not just for the individual who suffers from mental illness and their family, but it diminishes our whole society, our whole nation.
So that is a very good concept and it has inspired me and Greg and our government to put more resources into mental health, working with the states, working with the professions, working with the community. You know, destigmatising mental illness. It has been a big part of it.
And what we need to do is to continue to focus on that and we are. I can assure you it is a very big priority.
Look at what we've done with Veterans' mental health issues. Look at the way we've ensured that if you have served one day, full-time, in the ADF, you are then able to secure support and assistance, you know, treatment, for mental illness.
So we recognise that mental illness is something that has been - taboo is probably too strong a word - but we have turned somewhat of a blind eye to it in the past. We've got to be very alert to it, recognise we all have a vested interest in it and address it.
No government has spent more, federal government has spent more on addressing mental health issues than mine.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister can you confirm that NATO has asked Australia to send troops to Afghanistan? And can you detail how we’ll be responding to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. Thank you.
As you know, I was in Afghanistan only a few weeks ago, thanking, as I was indeed in Baghdad, thanking our troops for their service in the fight against terrorism. It was appropriate to be there at Anzac Day.
Now, when I was in Afghanistan, I had discussions with the commander of the NATO mission there, General Nicholson, I had discussions with the US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis. We have been asked to consider additional resources and we are actively considering that. We're open to that.
As you know, what we are doing in Afghanistan at the moment, we have personnel embedded in various parts of the NATO operation there. But the bulk of our forces are focused on training and mentoring the Afghan National Defence Force. I went out, you may recall, I went out to the defence academy there in Kabul, where we have Australian trainers there and also a force protection element as well. So we are certainly open to increasing our work there, but we've obviously got to look at the commitments of the ADF in other parts of the region and indeed in other parts of the world.
But it is very important that we continue - we and our other allies - in the effort in Afghanistan, continue to work together, to build up the capacity of Afghanistan's own security forces so that they can keep that country secure from the threat of terrorism, both ISIL and of course the Taliban.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, the accused terrorist Neil Prakash is wanted by the United States, by the United Kingdom, by Turkey, by Israel. Why is it so important for Australia to be spending money to go to the effort of bringing him back to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, what is really important is that Neil Prakash never gets out of jail. He is one of the most dangerous people in that region. He is a financier, a leader, a planner of terrorism. He should never ever be out of jail again.
Now, he’s in jail in Turkey. He faces some charges in Turkey at the present time. The Turkish justice system obviously has to go through its process, but he is wanted here. We will seek to extradite him when that's able to be done, back to Australia to face criminal charges here and pay the price for his crimes.
What is vital - you cannot be complacent about a man as dangerous as that. I can tell you, very seriously, very gravely, Neil Prakash should never ever be released from custody. I will do everything I can to ensure that he remains behind bars - full stop.
JOURNALIST:
Was your bank levy dreamed up overnight as some in the sector have been suggesting today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely not.
JOURNALIST:
The Victorian Premier has accused you of short changing them on infrastructure funding. What’s your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well my response to that is that we have made billions of dollars available to infrastructure funding in Victoria and would like to do more. We would like to do more. We look forward to but we need a cooperative state government.
There is also, I might say, the added opportunity - which I've discussed with Daniel Andrews - of the federal government acquiring their share in Snowy Hydro. We would do that, as I discussed with the Premier, on the basis that the proceeds of that were invested in priority infrastructure in Victoria.
So there is an opportunity to do more in Victoria, but what we need obviously, are the projects.
You may recall that we offered to invest in the Melbourne Metro, and the state government said: ‘No, we don't need your money.’ So we're looking, we're spending $30 million for example, in addition to the billions we are putting into regional rail and the Monash Freeway and the M80 Ring Road, we are also looking at the prospects or the viability of a Melbourne-to-Tullamarine - Melbourne city to Melbourne Airport rail link. Many people would say it's long overdue. I hope that that is a project that we would be able to work on with the state government. We are prepared to invest.
Now, this is a very important point, and I will just close on this point - historically, federal governments have been like an ATM. Right? They've just handed out grants to the states for infrastructure. I have changed that. My Government is different. Sure, we're making grants, but we are also investing. We are investing. We will invest in Snowy Hydro. We will invest and build the Western Sydney Airport. We are investing and building the inland rail - long called-for. It has been talked about for generations. I think if you go back to Federation they were talking about building an inland rail between Melbourne and Brisbane. We are going to build that.
So we are investing. We are a government that invests. We want to make sure the taxpayer gets value for their dollars, that we are not simply an ATM doling out grants to state governments without any involvement or say or influence over how the money is spent.
So investing, being partners, that's what we're doing and we have committed $75 billion of investment in infrastructure in the budget. This is a nation-building budget. It is a fair budget and it delivers the opportunity and the security that Australians deserve.
Thank you all very much for being here at St Vincent's.
[ENDS]