PM: It's great to be back in Townsville, and here with Tony Mooney, our candidate, and of course Senator Jan McLucas as well. And it's good to be back here at the Townsville Hospital, Townsville General, to talk about the future of health and hospitals right around the nation, but right here also in North Queensland. The Government is committed to a reform plan called the new National Health and Hospitals Network, which is to be funded nationally, but run locally, for the first time the Australian Government funding the exclusive needs of our primary healthcare system for the future, the dominant funder for our acute hospitals, and the exclusive funder for our aged care network.
And run locally, because we believe the decisions on the delivery of local healthcare services are better taken locally, through local hospital networks. Of course, where the rubber hits the road is what happens here in Townsville and how do we make a difference for the future. Well, one of the things that we listened long and hard to when we were here for our consultation six or nine months ago- I think in this very auditorium- was the need for regional oncology services, and how we could deal with the needs of cancer sufferers in this part of Australia.
Cancer is a disease which affects so many Australians each year. 100,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed each year. 40,000 Australians die each year from cancer. It is one of the biggest killers in Australia. For some cancers, patients from rural areas are up to three times more likely to die within five years of diagnosis than those who live in urban Australia. Three times more likely to die within five years of diagnosis if you're in rural Australia, as opposed to urban Australia.
Our view is that that is not good enough. It is just not good enough, and we have to make a change for the future. The Government is now investing some $2.3 billion in cancer infrastructure, medicines, screening and research right across the country, but the missing part in the jigsaw puzzle has been the delivery of integrated cancer care centres and integrated cancer services in rural and regional Australia. That's why I'm pleased to announce today a $438 million investment in rural and regional integrated cancer centres right across the country.
This investment will mean that Australians in rural and regional communities across Australia will be able to obtain better cancer treatment closer to home. I'm pleased to be here today in Townsville of course with Tony Mooney, our candidate and former Mayor of this great city for twenty years, who actually knows something about what it means to his local community. So many times have I been here over the years only to hear so many families say to me 'why do I have to travel to Brisbane for everything?'
Now, this is a common refrain, not just here, but in many other parts of Australia as well. Why do I have to travel to the capital city to get basic or better or integrated cancer treatment services? So today here in Townsville I'm pleased to announce that the Australian Government will be providing $67.5 million to enhance the Townsville cancer centre to improve access to comprehensive cancer care here in North Queensland. This funding will provide for a PET/CT scanner, which will be the first north of Brisbane, three additional radiotherapy bunkers, two additional linear accelerators, and 26 additional chemotherapy chairs.
This will double the existing radiotherapy bunkers at Townsville hospital to six, and increase the number of linear accelerators to five. We've listened long and hard to what people legitimately say in this part of the world. Tony was telling me before that some 4 to 500 people from this part of Queensland have to travel to Brisbane each year to get decent services. Frankly, as I said before, that's not good enough, and this is designed to change that around. This will significantly expand cancer treatment services at Townsville, as well as strengthening support for satellite cancer services in Cairns and Mackay.
Also, we are investing a further $2.5 million in Mt. Isa to enhance the teleoncology services which will be delivered there.
Today, also, it's not just me speaking here in Townsville- I have Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries right across the country making similar announcements in other parts of rural and regional Australia. The Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, is today in Victoria to announce $42 million for the Ballarat Regional Integrated Cancer Centre. And later today she'll be travelling to Albury-Wodonga to make an announcement there.
The Minister for Rural Health, Warren Snowdon, is in Tamworth to announce $31.7 million for the New England and Northwest Regional Cancer Centre. Parliamentary Secretary for Disability, Bill Shorten, is in Gippsland to announce $23.5 million for an extension to the cancer centre and accommodation facilities there. And the Parliamentary Secretary for Western Australia, Gary Gray, is as we speak in Bunbury to announce $23.4 million for cancer upgrades at the St. John of God Hospital.
And we will have further announcements to make about further locations over the next week to two weeks. These are important investments in rural and regional Australia, in order to make a difference to the lives of working families, pensioners, carers, and those who are afflicted by this terrible disease.
It's part of our plan to deliver a new National Health and Hospitals Network. Better health, better hospital services for all Australians, wherever they are, whatever income level they may have. Funded nationally, run locally, because what the Australian people want are more hospital beds, more doctors, more nurses, and for critical disease categories like this, better treatment, particularly outside the capital cities.
And can I conclude by thanking Tony Mooney, who's been an extraordinarily strong voice for North Queensland on this over many years. He's worked very hard for the people of Townsville for over 20 years as Mayor. He's now standing for us as a candidate for the next federal election, and I would welcome his presence in Canberra as a further strong voice for North Queensland there. He's a person I've known for the last 20 years and for whom I have enormous respect, and I thank him for his strong advocacy and support of this announcement today.
Over to you, folks.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: I've been talking to those on the ground here about the project management for this. What I have seen so far in similar expansions in other parts of the world- other parts of the country- is that you may be looking at a period of a one to two year implementation period to make sure that it's all done properly. I'm just being frank with you about that. It's something you can't snap your fingers and say it'll be installed tomorrow morning. The budget is clear. The money is allocated. It is therefore there to be drawn upon. What is now needed is a project management plan within the hospital to actually bring these facilities on-stream.
For example, a week or so ago- a little longer now- I was at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, opening a new PET scanner which has taken an 18 month installation period from when we allocated the money to the actual opening of that facility. By the way, in all of Sydney, you may be interested to know this, there are only 6 PET scanners. We now have one for North Queensland, through this funding, so it's going to be an important contribution to local cancer services here.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: No, I think you're going to be looking at the next year or two. But I'd much rather just be upfront with you and say the money's delivered, this is what it's for, and we'll wait for a subsequent announcement from our good friends here in the hospital on their project implementation plan. The best thing, and the most important thing, is to get it absolutely right- properly plugged in, properly operating, rather than meeting some sort of arbitrarily, politically-determined deadline that it should be here by the second Thursday in March, you know, next year or whatever. I'd much rather depend on the experts to get it done right. I've spoken this morning to the folk in paediatrics and elsewhere, these are very competent people, and they will get it right. So I'm sure the hospital will make an announcement in due course about the actual physical switch-on date for each of the facilities that I just referred to.
JOURNALIST: We've been waiting for some time. Aren't you concerned that the timing of this may cause (inaudible) considering the proximity to the election?
PM: You know something? I just think it's time for everyone to be a bit positive, frankly. I heard there was some criticism about this, this morning, from the current Liberal Member here. You know something, I'd just say this to, you know, Mr Lindsay, just - be positive. You know, this is actually good news for North Queensland. Just be positive about it. You know, I could go around and say, well, what did you do for twelve years? Why didn't it happen under the previous Government? But let's just focus on the future. Let's just get it done. The money's here. It's delivered. We've heard. We've listened. Let's just get on with it. I think that's what the Australian people want, and more generally, I think that's what the people of North Queensland want as well, rather than just some political scrap.
JOURNALIST: COAG's coming up. Do you think you can get (inaudible) state Premiers onboard? And (inaudible)?
PM: I continue to meet, I continue to talk, I continue to telephone, I am contributing at present to Telstra's share price.
And I am working hard right across the country, and I was speaking to Premiers - in fact, last night here on the phone. And I'll be seeing Anna Bligh again when I get down to Brisbane, and Premier Keneally again, and the other Premiers I'm speaking to as well. You know, this month's Council of Australian Government meeting is a once in a generation opportunity to get health and hospitals reform right. Let's not pass this opportunity up. If we implement this, this will be the biggest reform to the health and hospital system since the introduction of Medicare, nearly 30 years ago.
All Australians, whatever their politics, they just want better health, better hospital services, they want more doctors, more nurses, and they want more hospital beds. That's the baseline here.
I'd just say one other thing - I'd encourage all the premiers to get in behind this new national reform, funded nationally, run locally, and I'd say to my political opponent, Mr Abbott, get positive as well. Get in behind this. Support this change for the nation.
I saw some comments yesterday from him. I want to deliver this reform cooperatively with the states and territories if I can, but I can't get there cooperatively there's only one other way through, and that is through going to the people direct and asking them for the powers necessary to implement this through referendum. And I was pretty surprised and a bit stunned when I saw Mr Abbott opposing the Australian Government, through referendum, asking the Australian people for their support for this. I was pretty stunned by that.
I think Australians, across the country, if we can't arrive at this cooperatively as states and territories and the Australian Government, I think they'd want to be asked. I think they'd be pretty surprised and pretty disappointed if Mr Abbott was still standing in the road of that and I'd ask him to reflect on that and to change his position.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: On the way in which decisions are made on the regional cancer centres, of the one that we are announcing here today in Townsville, is that we have had the Health and Hospitals Fund, at arms' length from the Government, assessing all the applications which have come in from right across the country, including those from Townsville, including the one that you've just mentioned.
They have ticked off on each of the recommendations which have come to us, and the Government has decided based on that, and therefore, obviously, they have made a decision in support of this hospital and the service operating here, as opposed to the one that you've just referred to, but those are decisions which have been deliberated on by experts, and we, they having ticked them off, we have therefore looked carefully at what conclusions they've reached.
JOURNALIST: President Obama is hosting a nuclear summit in Washington in the next (inaudible). Almost every world leader is going to be going. Are you re-considering your decision to go?
PM: No, what I've said all throughout is that my first priority is health and hospitals, and I will not be attending the nuclear summit in Washington. It's important and I congratulate President Obama for his leadership in convening that summit, but my job here is to deliver health and hospital reform for all Australians. This is a once in a generation opportunity. The Council of Australian Governments meeting rapidly approaches. That nuclear summit is only, I think, four or five days before that. I need to be here. I need to be working with the premiers and the chief ministers to bring about agreement, so my priority must be to deliver health and hospital reform, and Australia will be represented by a senior minister.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Oh, sort of, up North Queensland, there. Oh, sorry, you meant more broadly?
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Well, this is a very big hospital. This is over 560 beds. This is a major hospital by any national standard, not just by a state standard, and therefore when it comes to the delivery of wider health services to North Queensland, obviously this hospital has a central role. That's why we're investing some $250 million in this hospital now and its expansion, quite apart from the $70 million we're now investing into this integrated cancer centre here. So, the future of this hospital for us is critical. It becomes the hub through which you deliver integrated health services to so many people in North Queensland.
I go back to the basic principle - we need to build an Australia where people in regional and rural Australia can have confidence they can have access to the greatest possible range of health services in their major regional centres, of which Townsville is one.
JOURNALIST: We have a very busy emergency department, patients waiting 10-12 hours to get into the hospital. (inaudible)
PM: Two ways - firstly, what the Australian Government is already doing through the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, is investing with the states for the first time in a $750 million program to enhance emergency department capacity right across the country. I stand to be corrected, it may be 650, but it's in that vicinity.
And what's it designed to do? It's designed to actually increase the capacity of EDs right across the country in physical ways, like increasing the number of bays, but secondly also investing also in innovative other approaches to streamline people through emergency departments.
Take, for example, what's often called in some centres a 'fast lane' or a 'fast line' - people present at emergency departments, they haven't got the most serious of conditions, they could be dealt with effectively by GP-type services. How do you fast lane or fast line those folk immediately to an accessible GP service, which enables the ED to be freed up? That's one of the sorts of services that we're funding.
Another sort of service that we're funding is also what's called a rapid assessment unit, whereby a person having been admitted into an emergency department or seen in an emergency department is then put into a further reception unit for close observation for 24 hours or so, before they are either admitted as an inpatient or discharged.
The whole point of both those types of investments is it frees up the actual bays available within the emergency department and enables, therefore, people to be seen more quickly. These are the sorts of innovations we are beginning to fund nationally already. Under the new National Health and Hospitals Network we'll be funding more of these across the nation. That's one part.
The second is to make sure you've got enough doctors. We now are investing in another 6,500 medical training places over the decade ahead.
I remember being here in Townsville when some young doctors came up to me and said 'I'm just about to finish my university course but I can't have a guaranteed internship in the hospital because there are not enough funded training places.' Struck me as mad that that should be the case here or anywhere else, and that's why we are increasing, from next year, by a large number, the number of funded medical training places across all Australia's hospitals.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: Well, first of all, as I said yesterday, it's still, for me, outrageous that this Chinese ship, in broad daylight, could be 12km off course in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, and let's just call a spade a spade here, but there's a whole series of other practical things to be worked through, one of which is how did this occur? Who's responsible? And, through a proper investigatory process, what penalties should apply.
The second thing is, through a proper investigatory process, what changes need to be made for the future for the wider Great Barrier Reef, including pilotage, including the way in which we actually monitor vessel through, what's called a vessel tracking system.
Changes were made back in 2006, I'm advised, by the previous government, which took the pre-existing arrangements for pilotage, the pre-existing arrangement for vessel tracking, from the northern stretch of the Barrier Reef to include the Torres Strait. They did not, at that stage, extend that to the southern Barrier Reef, where, of course, this problem occurred with the Chinese vessel. Obviously, therefore, one of the things for us now to examine carefully is the extension of that regime more broadly across the Reef. We're going to do this in a very considered way, given the fact that the Great Barrier Reef is too important for all of us to put at risk in the future.
So, let's get the facts straight first, and then act.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: The Minister for Communications, Stephen Conroy, has already announced a series of regional locations in regional Australia for trialling the roll out. I believe those decisions, Jan, are underway, including for this part of the world. Help me out, please?
MCLUCAS: Gulliver, (inaudible)
MOONEY: I've got a conflict of interest. I live in Gulliver, right nearby.
PM: Well done mate, well done. I didn't know that, either.
MCLUCAS: I'm happy to assist you with that part of (inaudible)
PM: We're serious about the roll out being demonstrated early in regional Australia. That's why a number of locations have been chosen here in Townsville - thank you Senator, thank you, candidate, for your assistance - and we intend to get on with the business of the wider roll out.
So many times - and folks I'm going to have to go because I've got to actually jump on a plane - is, so many times I have been here in Townsville. I think have been here four or five, five or six times since being Prime Minister, Cairns and elsewhere, I get this question: 'what about access to proper broadband services?'
All I can say is we have a plan. We have the National Broadband Network. We have a company. It's called NBN Co.' They are in the midst of complex commercial negotiations right now, but this trial roll out is already occurring in regional centres across Australia, including Townsville. We can't have this happen fast enough in terms of the future needs of this economy.
And folks, I've got to zip. Thank you very much.