WILKINSON: And the Prime Minister joins me now from Brisbane. Good morning to you, Prime Minister.
PM: Good morning.
WILKINSON: Thank you for your time. Now, it looks like the states are going to be the sticking point on this, Prime Minister. You're threatening a referendum at the next election, but this was a promise that you made at the last election. Why should Australians vote for you again?
PM: What we've spent the last two years doing, our two years in office, is getting the detail right on what must be the funding and structure of our national health and hospital network for the decade ahead. You've got to get that right to deliver better health and better hospitals for all the working families of Australia.
Now, we hope that the states and territories will get behind those who want to see change. I think we're seeing a lot of criticism come out from all sorts of interesting quarters in the last 24 hours, but I just ask your viewers to ask this question: if you out there are happy with the current state of your hospitals and you don't think they should be improved, well, I think you'd be in the minority.
People want to see big changes and big improvements for the future. That's what this national plan is about, which will be nationally funded and run locally. That's what I think the people of Australia want.
WILKINSON: I think a lot of people would agree with you, Prime Minister, but that was the promise, that you said at the last election you were going to take them over. What we've got now is you're only proposing a 60 per cent takeover. In reality, this isn't going to solve the problem of the blame game and the Commonwealth versus the state bickering. You'll still be able to point the finger at each other.
PM: Well, we think it's time to end the blame game. And what you'll have here, for the first time, is the Australian Government saying that we have the dominant funding responsibility for this nation's hospitals for the first time in Australian history, and secondly, the Australian Government taking total funding responsibility for health services delivered outside of hospitals.
That's why this overall reform is so important. Patients don't want to be shunted between one system run by the Commonwealth and another system run by the states. They're absolutely tired of the buck passing. They want to know that they have a properly funded system for the long-term future, and they are deeply concerned about the states' and territories' ability to fund this system for the long term.
WILKINSON: But it's 60 per cent. People still have concerns about duplication, how you're going to keep a hold on bureaucracy, how you're going to reduce waiting lists, and aren't jobs going to be lost through all of this?
PM: Well, let me go to the question of waiting lists, and I think many of your viewers will be worried about that right now. In fact, I was talking to someone just a little while ago whose wife has been waiting seven months to see a specialist about concerns about veins in her legs.
What we need, through new, tough, national standards, is for patients to have confidence that there will be maximum waiting times, there will be absolute maximum waiting times for elective surgery and for treatments at accident and emergency. We don't have those standards nationwide at present, and if you're a patient out there using our hospitals today, I think that's something you'd like to see changed for the future.
The other part of your question was about bureaucracy. We are bringing in local hospital networks to ensure that locals can run their hospital systems for the future. Local doctors, local nurses, so that if you're a patient you know that your local health professionals are in the driving seat.
So, our reform is about a system which is funded nationally, which is run locally, and is designed to lift the health services and the hospital services of this country.
WILKINSON: OK, Prime Minister, just quickly on another subject, the front page of The Courier Mail this morning says that federal MPs want to increase their living away from home allowance to $27,000, add their current electoral allowance of $32,000 to their base salary of $131,000 and be given five months' salary if they lose their seat. Do you think that's all appropriate?
PM: Well, first of all, can I say that one of the first things we did in coming into Government was, in our first year, was to freeze MPs' salaries. That was one of the first things we did.
Secondly, of course, there have been adjustments since then, but what you need to have is a system which is run by an independent body, the independent Remuneration Tribunal. No-one out there wants politicians controlling this. I don't want that either.
So, the independent umpire should get on with the business of deciding what's fair in these circumstances, and everyone will be having their say to this review. Members of the public should have their say as well.
WILKINSON: OK, Prime Minister, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you very much for your time this morning. We appreciate it.
PM: Thanks for having me on the program.