HOST: Kevin Rudd, welcome to the show.
PM: Thanks for having me on the program. I think Madonna's right to be upset.
HOST: Absolutely. I mean, particularly the Queensland health system, but I watched you at the Press Club yesterday Kevin, and I truly believe that you want to fix the health system. But I'm just -
PM: Well I'm from Queensland mate, I know what's gone right here and what's been going wrong here. And let me tell you, we're not Robinson Crusoe. There are problems right across the country. We need better health, better hospitals for the future. That's what we're on about with this reform.
HOST: Well, I watched the whole thing yesterday and I honestly believe that this is what you want to achieve. But I'm a bit nervous- I don't mean to be susceptible to Tony Abbott's 'look out, they can't handle insulation', but I think I am, I think I'm a bit nervous that, you know, this is such a big thing that you've presented.
PM: Well what we're on about here is something pretty basic. A national health and hospitals network which is funded nationally, but is run locally. You can't have local hospitals run from, you know, bureaucrats in Canberra, or for that matter, bureaucrats in capital cities. When we say run locally, that's exactly what we mean.
You need local hospital networks so that your local doctors, your local specialists, your local nurses have a much bigger role in driving the delivery of hospital services in your community. So we're going to, as a Federal Government, be funding those local hospital networks direct. But the running of them will be in the hands of local professionals. That's as it should be.
HOST: Prime Minister, I've got a couple of questions from listeners.
PM: Sure.
HOST: Can you ask Kevin to concentrate on- no that's not the right question- ask Mr Rudd why he took the hospital boards away when he was in the Goss Government. This problem goes back 30 years. Is that true? I couldn't confirm or deny that.
PM: Well look, there's a difference between what you'd describe as a hospital board for an individual hospital as opposed to local hospital networks. Let me explain the difference. A local hospital network, as we plan it, would bring together between, say, one and five local hospitals into a local community of interest, where you've got the right spread of services across those hospitals, and secondly, they can then work with each other to deliver the best services for that local community.
That's what we want with the local hospital network. It's quite different to having every one of Australia's 768 public hospitals each with their own board, basically fighting against each other to compete for resources. We think this is the right balance. That is, we want to have a system which is run locally, funded nationally, but which is not, at the same time, run by bureaucrats, be they in Canberra or the nation's capital cities.
HOST: And Kevin, one of the biggest bugbears people have is waiting lists for elective, emergency surgeries. How can you guarantee that people are - will have a maximum time now to wait for these services?
PM: Because by bringing in a new funding agreement, whereby the Australian Government funds directly local hospital networks, one of the conditions will be this - national standards in terms of an acceptable waiting time for elective surgery, and an acceptable waiting time in accident and emergency as well. I listened very carefully to what Madonna had to say before. Frankly, that's not good enough, and the system needs to change.
I was talking this morning to a bloke whose wife has been trying to get her veins attended to for the last seven months. She's in a lot of discomfort, but her experience is much the same as was just now described by Madonna. Business as usual is not good enough. We need to change the system, change the way it's funded, that's what we're proposing. And we're going to have state health bureaucrats and politicians from right across the country argue against this. But I think the mood of the country is 'enough is enough, let's get on with it'.
HOST: Well Victoria have a pretty good health system already, and Perth, of course, Western Australia is a Liberal Government- so how do you think you're going to go convincing?
PM: You know something, we're going to have opposition from various state politicians, from various state health bureaucrats, and probably of course from Mr Abbott, as he tends to oppose most things we do. But the bottom line is this. I don't think any reasonable person out there listening who's concerned as a local patient believes that the current system is good enough. They don't think business as usual is acceptable.
They want the system improved. They want it properly funded for the future. And on top of all that, they want an end to the blame game between Canberra and the states, and just get on with delivering more hospital beds, more doctors, more nurses to the system. And what we've put forward is a big national plan to do that. It's been well thought out. It's been well-costed. And we want to get on with it.
HOST: Just on the cost there, does that mean the funding would mean an increase in taxes? Are you contemplating a GST increase?
PM: Absolutely no increase in the GST. Second point I'd say is this. What we're also saying is that we will dedicate one-third of the current GST payments to the states to a new hospitals fund, only to be spent on hospitals. That's part of the change for the future. The second is this though. If you look at the future demands placed on our system, with the ageing of the population and folk over 65 needing more and more hospital services, and that's just as night follows day, that happens, you've got to put the long-term funding of our system on to a secure footing.
That's why the Australian Government for the first time will take on the dominant funding responsibility for the system for the future, and secondly, take on total funding responsibility for what happens with health services outside of hospitals. It's the best way, also, to end the blame game.
HOST: And if the states don't comply, will you cut their funding?
PM: Well, we want to try and get the states and territories to agree to this. And we've set out some discussions with them over the weeks ahead. But at the end of the day, they need to come with us.
HOST: I noticed yesterday that you said you'd had some monosyllabic answers from some of the premiers.
PM: Well what I'd say back to the Premiers, though, right across the country, Liberal, Labor, Calathumpian, is the people of Australia are tired of the current system. They want improvement. No one believes the current system is meeting demands at present. The Madonnas who rang into your program this morning are right across Australia. And they are saying that they want to know that when they get to their hospital, there's an acceptable waiting time. They want to know that their local hospital is meeting tough national standards.
They want to know that as a patient they won't be shunted from one service to another, just because the Commonwealth funds one and the states fund the other. They want to know that their local doctors and their local nurses are going to have a much bigger say in the running of their local hospital networks. That's what they want. And I'd just say to the state premiers and politicians and others, it's time to get with fundamental reform for the system. The business as usual approach of the last couple of decades, frankly, doesn't wash anymore.
HOST: Alright, Prime Minister Rudd, thank you very much for your time this morning. And the way Tony Abbott's going in this last couple of weeks, he's going to need the system. He's been missed by a truck and he's been lost in the desert.
PM: Well it seems that he likes to live on the edge a bit, but, you know, good luck to him.
HOST: Alright Kevin, thank you very much for your time this morning.
PM: Thanks a lot, thanks for having me on the program.