PM: I'm here today at Maroondah Hospital and I'm joined by the Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon and of course by our local Member Mike Symon, and I'd like to say a very big thank you to all the staff and patients here at Maroondah who have made us feel so welcome today, as we had the opportunity to walk around and talk to people.
Here in Victoria today I am talking to people about the difference that our health reform agreement will make. Yesterday the Minister for Health and I were in a position to announce that we had struck an agreement right around the country to improve health services for Australians.
In Victoria that means that there will be more money, more beds, more services, more local control of hospitals, greater accountability and transparency, as well as less waste and less waiting time.
In terms of more beds, hospitals like this one are already seeing benefits flow through. The Eastern Health Division will see an investment of $12 million, part of that investment will be used for 20 more beds right here, with construction to start in 2012. A local example of the kind of changes people will see around the country, as new resources are flowing into our health care system.
For Australians what this means is less waiting time, less waiting time in emergency departments and less waiting time for elective surgery. To give the examples for Victoria: currently at the moment around 66 per cent of people who go to an emergency department are seen within four hours and have their case dealt with. We want to increase that to a target of 90 per cent. And we will see that change progressively, so that in 2012 that 66 per cent will increase to 72 per cent and continue the journey to meeting the 90 per cent national target in 2015.
For elective surgery, in Victoria today 73 per cent of people are seen and have their surgery within the clinically recommended times, that will go to 100 per cent as our national target and that will be rolled out here in Victoria in 2015 as well.
But in 2012 people should expect that to rise from 73 per cent today to 79 per cent. So, real benefits flowing already, with more benefits to come as people experience less waiting time, either in the emergency department or for elective surgery.
So, it's been good to be here today, it's been good too to talk to the staff as to how they are already changing work practices and procedures so people wait less time in the emergency department and they move to other parts of the hospital that can meet their needs including their needs for further assessment and very intense care, for people with the medical conditions that require that.
So, I'm very pleased to be here. I'll turn now to the Minister for Health for any comments she might want to make and then we'll take your questions.
MINISTER ROXON: Look, I'll just make some brief comments. I'm pleased to be here again with Mike, we've been regular visitors out at the hospital during the course of the health reform process, starting with a round table a number of years ago. And to be able to come back and see the changes at the hospital in the course of that time, I think is a real credit to your staff and I wanted to just put on the record that I know you're in a area of Melbourne that has very high demands, an ageing population and as your local Member well knows, the services that you provide here in conjunction with the other hospitals is very, very valuable and we're pleased that our health reforms will continue to back that wok, not least of course having the national activity based funding. Of course, a form of that already applies in Victoria, but it will mean that the Commonwealth continues and increases its share of funding for every bit of activity, so if you're a busy hospital, if you're a hospital that does and expensive range of procedures because you have particularly sick, or particularly elderly patients, you will benefit more from these reforms than the agreements that have been in place in the past.
So, I think at Maroondah Hospital that's good news and I really just wanted to be here to add to the Prime Minister's comments and thank you for the work that you've been doing. Of course, there's many more challenges into the future and we think these health reforms will really support that work and give you the ability to be able to provide even better services to your community.
Thanks for having us here.
PM: Thanks, and on Mike's recommendation I think Melissa's getting the first question.
JOURNALIST: What will it mean for Maroondah residents and Maroondah patients?
PM: What it's going to mean here in Maroondah is people will see construction starting next year, which will bring 20 extra beds here. That means, of course, that people will see extra services being able to be provided from this hospital and here in this hospital and right around the state people will see less waiting time in the emergency department and for elective surgery.
This is a hospital that's doing a great job, great staff, we've had the opportunity to meet with them today as I've moved round and when we're talked to patients the first thing they've said to all of us is that they are so impressed with the care that they're getting from the staff here.
But we want to make sure all of that energy and goodwill from local staff is matched with new resources and that's what the health reform agreement is about, making the Commonwealth Government an equal partner in growth, so that there's more money in the system that can go to meeting local needs.
I'm very happy to take other questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what was discussed in your meeting last night with News Limited editors?
PM: Thanks very much for that question. I was invited to meet with News Limited editors last night, by John Hartigan the Chief Executive Officer in Australia. I accepted that invitation.
We had a private meeting, it was a broad ranging discussion, it was a good discussion canvassing a number of topics.
JOURNALIST: Did you ask any hard questions?
PM: I'm not going to go to individual matters discussed, but we talked about a broad range of topics and it was a good discussion.
JOURNALIST: You did say that Australians would have questions for News Limited, and you did say that the company had a responsibility to answer those questions. So, as the Prime Minister, elected by the Australian people, did you ask those hard questions?
PM: And I think you'll find in my past doorstops and transcripts I've dealt very directly with that matter.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Melbourne University Press was very critical of the tabloid media and the campaign that she said that they've run against the Nixon book and you were sitting there listening to that and launching the book, surely this wouldn't have helped your relationship with News Limited at the moment?
PM: I did launch Christine Nixon's book today, Fair Cop, and I made the remarks that I wanted to in my speech in launching the book.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the Premier here says that patients (inaudible), what's your response to that?
PM: I have heard those remarks from Premier Baillieu and let me say first in relation to that remark - if this had just been a question of putting our some more money and giving Victoria a blank cheque with no other changes, you'd wonder why Premier Baillieu just didn't accept the money on the very first day.
Of course, that's not what this is about, there's no blank cheque - there's a big reform agenda and because of the breadth and depth of that reform agenda, there have been many, many meetings and conversations over a number of months to get this agreement right. This agreement will drive big reform in our hospital system and it needs to.
More transparency, more accountability, clear targets, more local control, the Federal Government stepping up to being an equal partner in growth. So, those benefits will come to Victoria.
And in practical terms and this statistics I've just given you, they will see, Victorians will see less waiting time in emergency departments and less waiting time on elective surgery lists. That's very real change in areas of health that people are very concerned about.
Everybody worries and wonders what it would mean for them if they had to go to an emergency department and get care for themselves or their families, how long they'd have to wait. These reforms will drive less waiting time and people wonder too how long they'd have to wait if they or a family member ended up on an elective surgery waiting list. There will be less waiting time as a result of these reforms.
JOURNALIST: Are these targets achievable though? The language has gone from guarantees to targets, why is that and do patients really expect (inaudible)?
PM: We struck these targets on the best of clinical advice, I think that's very important to recognise. This is not a process where politicians have sat in a room tossing numbers around, this is a process where we said to an expert clinical panel lead by a Chief Medical Officer, please go out and tell us, work with hospitals, give us your best clinical advice on what can be achieved. They can back and we adopted those targets.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: There's very practical work that's happening here so that those targets will be met and we've had this discussion here in this hospital and certainly it's happened in other parts of the country, that when you strike a clear target, when you're held to account against it, when it's absolutely transparent whether or not you've met it, the hospital reengineers the way it works so that it delivers to the target. It's happening here in this hospital, it's happening around the country. We are rewarding those changes with real money through our national partnership agreement and we will continue to drive those changes with $175 billion of new resources in the next decade and a half. So real money, a real reform agenda, absolute transparency and accountability for what happens in local hospitals.
JOURNALIST: Do you regret your decision to launch Christine Nixon's book, you didn't actually address any media about that event (inaudible)?
PM: Well I made a commitment to launch Christine Nixon's book, I've done it today and the comments I've wanted to make are contained in the speech I gave when I launched the book.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister a large number of patients that arrive at emergency departments do so, we've been told, because of lack of GPs in the local community. How will your announcement address this?
PM: Well I will get the Minister for Health to comment too. But we understood when we were first elected as a Government that our nation was short of general practitioners. Those shortages arose because of cut backs undertaken by Tony Abbott and the Howard Government. If you cut back the number of GP training places that shows. That shows in our community when people can't get a doctor. So we have worked to address that shortage of GPs, we will train 6,000 more GPs by the end of the decade. We'll also work to bring new services through GP super clinics and part of the reforms that we have worked on and are part of what was announced yesterday is of course local hospital networks to give better local control of what is happening in hospitals but also Medicare Locals so people who work in first instance care in the community including general practitioners can work together to fill service gaps for local community members. So we've got a big reform agenda for primary care. I'll turn to the Minister for Health for some comments as well.
MINISTER ROXON: Yes, thank you very. And as the Prime Minister said we've been steadily increasing the number of GPs being trained across the country, we've delivered already the halfway mark, we've increase from the cap that was in place when Mr Abbott was the Health Minister of 600 GP training places across the country, we committed to double that. We've this year placed 900 GPs, so the highest number ever, in training places across the country.
Here at Maroondah Hospital there are five GPs in training, this is the highest number of GPs that have been trained in this area and of course there are other practices that are participating. Our Medicare Locals strategy, the first 19 have been announced and commenced on 1 July this year. Part of the region that Mike's electorate covers is in the first of those 19, the other parts of course will be bidding for the next Medicare Locals that will commence from 1 January next year.
In addition to that the General Practice Network in this region just received $1 million last year to enhance all of their infrastructure and training programs so that they are better placed to be able to train new GPs in the community. So I think if you look at lots of different things that we've already done because our reforms that we announced yesterday build on very significant investments where we've been targeting shortages in the community and GPs has been one area where there have been shortages, we're doing a lot in that space already. We've just launched on 1 July the new after hours GP service. It's commenced around the country so that people can call in the middle of the night, get advice from the nurse or GP, make a decision whether they need to come to emergency department, we're still waiting for confirmation from the Victorian Government when they will join that service, they have indicated that they will, but across the rest of the country, that is now operational. 10,000 calls have been received just in the first month. So these important reforms really are tackling some of the problems that are real for patients in this community and we know that having enough GPs is just as important as funding our hospitals and that's why our reforms do both.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Minister Roxon just on plain packaging of cigarettes (inaudible).
MINISTER ROXON: Yes well we've introduced into the Parliament the world's first legislation to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products. That will be debated in the Parliament when we return in the coming weeks. Of course we've said from day one that we expected that big tobacco companies would fight this tooth and nail and indeed that is what they are doing. I've made it very clear that I'm not going to provide a running commentary and debate on legal issues, there are many people who will want to do that over the course of the coming months.
The litigation that is currently underway, just to give you the information rather than argue the legal case, is a Freedom of Information request. We have had a very large number of requests from tobacco companies. We believe they are using Freedom of Information to try to take up an awful lot of my department's time and they are certainly are being successful at that doing that. But this is a case that is requesting advice that was sought by a previous government nearly two decades ago and they are arguing in the Federal Court I understand today, whether or not they should have access to that advice.
The only point that of course I'm keen to make is that a lot has changed in that time. It seems to me a little bit of a strange exercise to invest so much time and energy in and of course it would surprise you that the legal advice that we take has been carefully taken, we're very confident of our ability to introduce these laws. We are equally confident that the tobacco companies don't like it and no doubt will try to challenge us and fight us along the way but we are determined to proceed with something which we know can save lives, can make the work of people like in this hospital much easier if we can prevent the serious disease that is caused by tobacco smoking.
JOURNALIST: Minister why won't you release that document (inaudible)?
MINISTER ROXON: Well it's standard practice for the Government not to release its legal advice, I think there are a lot of good reasons for that. The point that I am making simply is that the world has also moved on, for example the Convention for the control of tobacco has since that time added to its terms that states should consider introduce plain packaging legislation. We are indeed doing that and we are the first country in the world to take that action. We're proud of that because we believe we can reduce smoking rates across the country and that will save some of the thousands of lives that are lost every year to tobacco related disease.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible) Mike can I just ask you whether or not you support the carbon tax given that the head of your union (inaudible).
SYMON: Well I certainly do support what we're doing with the carbon tax, I think it's been something we've been arguing for for so long, since before we got into Government. It's been consistent right through and it's great to be able to stand here now and say this is something we've achieved, will go to Parliament, it will be debated but we now have a package there that looks after people Australia wide with decent compensation for those that are affected and I think that's where we needed to be with this debate the whole way along, is to be able to say yes this is the changes we needed to make, but these are also the benefits that flow from it, not just what the benefit for environment is but also the benefits for individual households. What the Electrical Trade Union decides to do or not do, they're not affiliated with the Labor Party these days and it's really a matter for them to decide.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister on the carbon tax, Victorian State Treasury estimates the cost to this hospital under the tax could go up about $170,000 per annum. Are you worried the extra money may, given these extra health reforms, will be eaten up by the carbon tax?
PM: Well thank you for that question and it enables me to address another Tony Abbott false claim that has been made about our carbon pricing scheme. Mr Abbott was out claiming that our carbon pricing changes would have flow through costs for hospitals and that there would be no assistance from the Federal Government for that. Now Mr Abbott probably remembers a bit about indexation of heath care arrangements because that was the mechanism he used to cut $1 billion out of our public hospital system. Of course the health care agreements that we have, have indexation in them, a component of how that indexation is struck is the Consumer Price Index. We've made it clear all along that the impact on the consumer price index will be less than one per cent, less than a cent in a dollar and the CPI is part of how our payments to hospitals are indexed. So it's simply not true as Mr Abbott has claimed to say that there is impact here that hasn't been taken into account in the way that the Federal Government disperse money to hospitals.
Thank you very much.