PM: It's good to be back in Perth, since I've been Prime Minister I've been here many, many times. This is the first time I've been here for a detailed consultation on the future of the health and hospital system. And this is important for us because we're in the business of road testing the recommendations of the health reform commission conclusions on the future direction of our system nationwide.
The Minister and I and other have conducted a number of consultations in many other States around Australia. It's time that we actually heard from what is one of the busiest hospitals in the country, Sir Charles Gairdner, but also more broadly from the health care community across Perth.
Secondly we are also today releasing this document, Building a 21st Century Primary Health Care System and I would thank all those who have been associated with the construction of this document because this is one of the key building blocks for the future - making sure that we are properly supporting GPs and GP related services to take pressure off our hospitals and make health services more accessible for working families and the community.
Of course this document has been long in the preparation and it deals with the challenges of our ageing population, rising rates of chronic diseases and the need to deal with the particular health needs in rural, remote and Indigenous communities as well and the Minister will go, in a minute, to some of these specific recommendations.
The other point I would make is today, I note also we have here the Member for Fremantle, is the absolute importance of making sure that we are, right now, still rolling out extended and expanded GP services for local communities that's why we are pleased to announce today $6.65 million funding to deliver a new GP super clinic at Cockburn.
Cockburn's a growing area and the services to be provided at the new Cockburn GP Super Clinic will focus on young families including childhood and adolescence community health and pre-natal care, post/ past midwifery and shared care services.
The clinic will also offer extended hours of service, a pharmacy and integrated chronic disease management. This is important not just for the community represented by Melissa but as we roll out 35 of these nationwide, for similar communities around the country to make sure that mums and dads with kids who get crook in the middle of the night, the have somewhere they can go, other than having to present at accident and emergency where, as you all know, the wait list can be very long and can often be very distressing. And can also create other problems for those in need of acute care at accident and emergency.
Could I also make a point on another matter, the election today, or over the course of the weekend of the new government in Japan and I'd like to very much pass on my congratulations to Mr Hatoyama, the Prime Minster-elect of Japan. Australia and Japan have a strong and close relationship which goes back a long, long time.
Japan remains Australia's largest export market. We have had close relations with Japan in foreign policy terms, in trade terms, in investment terms and also in people to people links going back many, many decades. And on behalf of the Australian Government I wish Mr Hatoyama and the Democratic Party of Japan well for the future.
I look forward to expanding our relationship with Japan in what is a most significant development in Japanese domestic politics. (Inaudible) Later today I will be telephoning Mr Hatoyama to discuss with him our relationship, to pass on my personal congratulations to him over his party's victory and to explore new areas of cooperation between ourselves and Japan in the period ahead. Over to you folks, oh no, first of all to Nicola on the primary health care report.
MINISTER ROXON: Thank you, look I would just like to add a couple of comments and of course our particular thanks for Doctor Tony (inaudible) today who chaired the external reference group, our expert group in the development in this primary care strategy. Its five weeks today since we released the Dr. Bennett's health reform commission report and that report makes very clear that primary health care is indeed the foundation stone of the health system and makes some detailed recommendations about how we might support and enhance the role of primary care in our health system.
The report we're releasing today now goes into more detail about how we might be able to do that from providing better access to families, e-health investments, making sure we have our infrastructure strategy right and supporting the workforce particularly new roles for the health workforce in enhancing the relationship between GPs, allied health professionals and nurses. So this is a very important further addition to our health reform discussion.
The release of the report today means that when people visit the yourhealth.gov.au website that they'll also be able to download this next level of detail on our primary care strategy and we very much invite contributions and thoughts from the community, from health professionals and from doctors about whether they think these recommendations meet their needs, how they might be able to be enhanced and to ensure that when we continue, as the Prime Minister and I and Minister Snowdon will do to consult across the country, that this level of detail is also available for people to give us their ideas on it.
PM: And just as I take your questions, getting the health and hospital system right for the 21st century is important for West Australia, it's important for Australia and I was elected to be Prime Minister for the whole country, getting health and hospitals right for the future is fundamental to that. That's why we're here in Perth today, to do as much as we can to get those policy settings right for the future. Over to you folks:
JOURNALIST: How many GPs will there be? Where will they come from and will they bulk bill?
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MINISTER ROXON: Thank you very much. The proposal that's been supported was put forward by the Fremantle division of GPs. They've identified this as a particular need. They have put forward a proposal which will have a number of GPs, they're not required to give us the specific number and of course we would expect that over that time it will grow. As with all our other GP super clinics we are trying to ensure that we are funding infrastructure to develop a best practice GP super clinic so that they become a place of choice for new young graduates.
In the coming two years Western Australia will have its number of medical graduates double, and of course we need to make sure there are training settings for them, not just in our hospitals, but also in the community. And I am very confident that this and the other two GP super clinics will in fact have a bit of a honey pot effect. That young graduating doctors who want to be in general practice can choose to go and work at these clinics. I'm not sure if Melissa wants to add anything more about the local divisions but we are very comfortable that this is an area of workforce shortage.
We're supporting super clinics in areas where we need to be able to attract new doctors and the division of GPs is very comfortable that they are going to be able to source these new GPs and of course train up the next generation of GPs so that we have a health and medical community in a new community like Cockburn where there is going to be growing need. So it's about getting in when there's a right window of opportunity to do that.
JOURNALIST: What about bulk billing?
MINISTER ROXON: They have not committed to bulk billing for all services but they have, as I understand it committed that they will bulk bill the majority of their services. I'll have to separately give you, chase up the details for you on that. It's been different in each application and we've been satisfied that an emphasis on bulk billing will deliver better access to the local community.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible).
PM: Look, State Governments, whatever their political persuasion have been under pressure for many, many years because the previous Federal Government actually pulled out a billion dollars worth of funding from the public hospital system. Who had to pay for that? The States, whatever their political complexion. So many of the States, Liberal or Labor are struggling to with making ends meet. What we have sought to do is put our best step forward with the Australian health care agreement which the Minister negotiated with the States and Territories at the end of last year, and that is a 50 percent increase in funding for the future and this of course is about other long term reforms. So I won't make a specific comment about the challenges which they are currently experiencing in funding the State health care budget.
What I can say more generally is that part of the reason for being here in the West is just to road test these recommendations about where people in the health and hospital community here want the system to go for the long term. Should we have the Australian Government assume full funding responsibility for out of hospital services? Should we move to a second stage reform whereby, over a period of time the Commonwealth assumes full funding responsibility for health and hospital services, including hospitals. These are what we're road testing here at the moment. I think the mood of the Australian public is, they want to have a debate, they want to have a discussion, they want us to, in a systematic way, land at the right decision for the future and we'll try and work these thing through as collaboratively as we can with the State and Territory Governments.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, given the leaking of the Henry documents on the stimulus package (inaudible)?
PM: Can I say on the economy, stand back from it all. This Australian economy, as of the end of the first quarter this year, was the fastest growing economy in the OECD, the fastest therefore, the Australian economy is the fastest growing developed economy in the world. It's the second-lowest unemployment of the major advanced economies. The lowest debt, the lowest deficit of the major advanced economies, and the only one so far not to have entered into technical recession. That's where we've got so far.
Secondly, we're not out of the woods yet, which is why the Australian Government is committed to the implementation of the national stimulus strategy that we embarked upon, in all of its, three phases. And that is, make sure that those cash payments were out to families and for the roll out of infrastructure, medium and long term, is occurring. Here in the West, we're currently supporting a very large-scale investment in the biggest school modernisation program the country has ever seen.
Primary Schools right across Western Australia are becoming building sites as we make sure that we're making a difference. So the question is to implement that, because it's so much, it's been so important to underpin growth. And if you're underpinning growth, you're underpinning jobs. Now, I notice Mr Turnbull and Mr Hockey are out today saying that we have to rollback the stimulus. What Mr Turnbull and Mr Hockey are saying is, rollback the stimulus and increase unemployment. That's what happens.
Our attitude is, implement the stimulus, particularly for infrastructure to make sure that we're building for the future, and providing jobs for today. That's the Government's strategy. Mr Turnbull and Mr Hockey are saying, rollback the stimulus, increase unemployment and pull the rug from underneath the economic recovery. That's the wrong way to go.
JOURNALIST: Will there be another one Mr Rudd? Will there be another one?
PM: We believe we've got our policy settings right based on the information that we have to hand. And that is to implement the clear, three-stage stimulus strategy that we articulated quite some time ago. The difference between acting on stimulus as we have done and not acting is huge in terms of growth, the economy, and jobs. Had Mr Turnbull and Mr Hockey had their way, and depending on which day's statements you happen to believe, what would've happened is that you would've had the Australian economy go into recession. And you would've had large-scale, additional unemployment.
This Government was not about to do that. And we believe that we've got the balance of our strategy right for the future. All the international agencies, including the International Monetary Fund, are very clear on the fact that the global economy, and the Australian economy, are not out of the woods yet. If you look at some of the difficulties which still exist within the US economy, some of the difficulties which still exist within the European economies, which together represent such a huge slice of global growth. What the international economic agencies are saying is that all G20 economies to continue to implement the stimulus strategies to which all of them have committed.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) to release Treasury minutes in the future?
PM: Look, on the question of the impact of the stimulus strategy-
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) the release of the minutes.
PM: On the question of the stimulus strategy and its effect on the real economy, I can tell you that there will be a rolling debate in the community of the type that we've just encountered with Mr Hockey and Mr Turnbull's comment today about whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.
The Government's been absolutely clear-cut about our strategy, three stages of stimulus to underpin growth and jobs, we own responsibility for that, we're the only economy so far of the major advanced economies not to have gone into recession. We believe we're on the right approach. Will there be a rolling debate about whether this is good, bad, or indifferent? Of course there will. But given the information that we've had to hand, including from our Treasury advisers, this was the responsible course of action to embrace, as Australia confronted (interruption)
This was the responsible course of action to embrace, given the fact that Australia was looking at, as other economies have been looking at, the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1920s and 30s.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: I can just say that the Government's strategy is absolutely clear-cut. And based on the debate today, what I can say to you is that the Opposition is not, other than to argue that we should rollback the stimulus strategy, pull the rug from under the recovery, and increase unemployment. That is not the Government's approach.
JOURNALIST: Who authorised the release of the minutes?
PM: In terms of the Treasury documents and the extent to which they had been released or not released, that's a question that's more appropriately addressed to the Treasurer.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd, you've labelled the oil spill as appalling, do you think the Federal Government's response was adequate?
PM: Well as I said on radio on Perth here today, it is an appalling incident. What are the three sets of things that you can do? Use dispersants as effectively as you can. Based on the advice that I've received in terms of the deployment of aircraft, as well as of other assets, it has been a significant effort. On the second part, which is how do you ensure that an additional well is provided at the earliest opportunity, this is a complex technical debate, whether technicians will rage in one direction or another.
The Australian Government is acting on the advice, acting on the basis of the advice that it's received. And thirdly, on the question of making sure that all the facts are put on the table on this, the relevant Federal Government authority has an investigation underway. This is an appalling incident, we've got to get to the absolute bottom of how it happened, but the immediate challenge is to deal with the practical consequences.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: On the details of all that, I haven't looked at the specific travel arrangements which have been put in place. But can I say, the Minister for Resources, Martin Ferguson, based on my advice was flying, flew over the site last Friday, he in turn has provided further briefings to Government officials, and this is something that we will continue to need to monitor. And as I said, here on Perth radio this morning, any further action that is necessary based on technical advice to the Government that needs to be taken, then we, the Government, will take. And we'll work closely in coordination with all the relevant agencies.
You're from a local paper, you wanted to ask something before, you've been badgering a couple of times now, and I've said come to the press conference, you're here at the press conference, so if I can't answer your local question, understand why I can't. But go on.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) how can you make a multi storey car park more sexy than a cancer centre?
PM: Well, that's a question I haven't been confronted with yet, but it's actually a real question that goes to how you provide maximum access to a very important hospital. For staff, for patients, and with maximum amenity of the local suburbs as well. We are not in the business of dictating local planning decisions by individual hospitals or local authorities about what is permissible or impermissible in terms of parking arrangements.
What we can, however, as a Federal Government do, is become larger partners with the health and hospital communities around the country in their long-term planning and funding needs. If there is one strategic message I have in terms of what we're trying to do here in Perth, and through this visit to Sir Charles Gairdner, is here is the diagnosis of the problems with the system, but when it comes to landing the solutions, they will have a price tag attached.
If our hospital and health care system is to be properly funded in the future, it has to address the breadth of needs within the health and hospital system, then local decisions including planning decisions have to be made. To conclude where I began in the presentation earlier today, none of the reforms outlined by the Australian Government of the future and the health and hospital don't come for free. They were all expensive. I gave you some indicative figures in the presentation before. These are multi-billion dollar reforms. And therefore that goes to the question of the extent to which the Australian community, and the WA community, which is made up of taxpayers, just as much as any other state in the country, would be willing to pay for those reforms long-term as well. Money doesn't simply grow on trees. And having said that, I've got to zip.