PM: I know many people in Queensland are suffering right now. Many people in Queensland are suffering from these extraordinary floods. People are frightened for themselves, for their homes, for their families and are going through enormous anguish right now.
I think all Australians are with the good people of these towns across Queensland right now if they go through a very difficult time, and it's times like this when the Australian family always bonds together to help those who are under particular need and particular challenge because of natural disasters.
The Australian Government is providing to the Queensland Government, through the natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements, support and this currently applies to 57 local government areas in Queensland. All local government areas are eligible for funding assistance for the restoration of essential public assets and counter-disaster operations. Concessional loans of up to $250,000 for small businesses and primary producers and freight subsidies up to $5,000 for primary producers are now available in ten local government areas of Balonne, Barcoo, Blackall-Tambo, Bulloo, Diamantina, Maranoa, Murweh, Paroo, Quilpie and Western Downs.
Western Downs, Quilpie, Balonne, Murweh and Maranoa residents are now eligible for personal hardship and distress assistance including emergency assistance payments, $170 dollars person up to $780 per family; potential household contents grants of $1,660 per person and up to $4,980 per couple or family; an essential repairs to housing grant of up to $10,250 per person and up to $13,800 per couple or family.
Individuals who have experienced personal hardship should contact the Queensland Department of Communities Disaster Relief Assistance Scheme hotline on 1800 173 349.
This is in addition to the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment (AGDRP) now being made available to eligible people adversely affected by severe flooding in the south-west Queensland.
Those who are eligible will receive a one-off payment of $1,000 for adults and $400 for each child.
People seeking information about the AGDRP can call the Australian Government's south-west Queensland floods hotline on 180 2122 or visit their local recovery centre.
I said before, I think all Australians are with the good people of South-West Queensland as they tackle these extraordinary floods. I spoke in the last day or two to the mayor of Charleville, I'll be speaking to local mayors myself again today on the phone to see what, if any, assistance further can be provided, and as with all these sorts of natural disasters and floods the Australian Army always stands ready to assist when called upon and that is the case now as well.
Let me speak now about the reason we're here at this great hospital at Sunshine here in Melbourne today.
The Australian Government has decided to launch a National Health and Hospitals Network which is to be funded nationally and run locally to deliver better health and hospital services for all Australians. As I'm here in her home town of Melbourne, I could publicly thank the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon for her extraordinary contribution to this important national reform.
The National Health and Hospitals Network will create a single network of national hospital services; a network of public hospitals across the country instead of eight separate systems which don't talk to each other.
Secondly, it's to be funded nationally which means that for the first time in Australian history the Australian Government taking on the dominant funding role for the future needs of the system.
Thirdly, the system will be run locally so that those with the clinical expertise at the local level will actually make the decisions about how the local hospital network works.
That is what I'm here to emphasise today.
A National Health and Hospitals Network which is funded nationally, but most critically, run locally. Run by local doctors, nurses, experts in local areas to make the critical decisions about how to lift hospital services in their community.
That's why what we see here at Sunshine is so important. What you have here is an existing local hospital network which works closely with its neighbouring hospitals, as I'm advised, Footscray and Williamstown, prospectively one other as well, in order to deliver the best possible services to those in these communities.
In the future where we see these reforms going is to, as an Australian Government, fund these local hospital networks directly in order that they will have secure, long term funding to deliver the best possible services to the people of these communities - that's why, the system again, a National Health and Hospital Network funded nationally, run locally though local hospital networks to make these decisions work on the ground.
We've also seen this morning how some of the practical measures that we've taken so far are beginning to take effect.
Outside we saw the evidence of the construction of the new teaching facility, which we are co-funders as the Australian Government. What does that mean? It means that for local hospital networks and local hospitals like this we can bring in the teaching services which are necessary here in this part of Melbourne relevant to the needs of this community. And so what you'll have there is the onsite clinical training of doctors, the onsite clinical training of nurses in much greater numbers than we've ever had before, and we're proud to be co-investors in that.
Under the new National Health and Hospitals Network the Australian Government will become the dominant funders of those sorts of facilities in the future.
We've got some runs on the board. We're co-investors in what you're doing now but in the future we'll become the dominant funders of those facilities for the future - training local doctors, training local nurses to work in local communities such as this.
Of course the other areas where we've got some runs on the board is the expansion of the operating theatres that we've seen here today as well at Sunshine.
The fact that we're able to invest already several million dollars in building a new operating theatre, enhancing the existing one to lift the overall throughput of this hospital.
I'm told that in terms of elective surgery, once these are up and running, it will increase the elective surgery throughput for this hospital by something in the vicinity of one third to one quarter of where it is at the moment; that is a great step forward, but we need more to be done.
Again, turning to the National Health and Hospitals Network for the future, we as the Australian Government would take on the dominant funding responsibility for the future expansion of operating theatres and the future expansion of hospitals themselves like the one here at Sunshine; that's why we need to get this reform done.
Remember we need to be planning, not just for next year, we need to be planning for the next decade and planning for the decade beyond. We believe the Australian Government must step up to the plate and take on this dominant funding responsibility. Nicola, do you wish to add to what I've just said?
MINISTER ROXON: Look, just very briefly, of course as a local Member and here will Bill Shorten the local Member, as we stand at Sunshine hospital we're very proud of the work that Sunshine hospital does, but also Western Health generally. We think it provides very good service to the community but we're always keen to see how it can be improved and the Prime Minister's outlined how getting sustainable funding into the future, getting the governance right, investing in the workforce is all part of our national plan. So I want to say thank you to Kath Cook and the team for having us here on a Saturday and keep up the good work.
PM: Bill, did you want to add?
SHORTEN: It's very good that the Prime Minister can visit Sunshine in the Western Suburbs. The Western Health region network does a great job for hundreds of thousands of people and it's very timely opportunity to have the Prime Minister visit because the Western Suburbs of Melbourne will benefit from national hospital reform as has been outline this week by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health.
PM: Thanks very much. If I could just conclude my remarks by again thanking Nicola for her work as Health Minister and as someone who knows something of the health needs of this region and taking that knowledge and applying it across the nation. Over to you folks,
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what's been your response to (inaudible) what have the people here who work so hard said how they feel about it?
PM: Sure. Well some of those that we spoke to inside over a cup of tea were saying that what they need is to have proper funding for the system for the future so that they can get on with the job of delivering their local clinical services. I think that's a fair summary of the comments that we had around the morning tea table this morning.
If I could give you just an example of some of the figures that they gave me, here at Sunshine in terms of those procedures classified today as urgent procedures, they said they have booked in 67 hours worth of operating time covering 23 patients. This are classified as urgent. Currently they have available 27.5 hours worth of rostered staff.
This is a story which is not unique to Sunshine; this is a story right across the nation. That is why hospitals like this need to be given that helping hand by the Australian Government to be able to deliver these services in the future.
No hospital system and no health system's ever going to be perfect but we can, as a nation, do better and I think what the doctors and nurse here have said to me is that they want us in there providing funding certainty to the future so that they can get on with the job of delivering better health and better hospital services to this community.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Queensland (inaudible) New South Wales, (inaudible) states like Victoria could be made to pick up (inaudible)?
PM: Can I say here in Victoria there are great things happening within the health and hospital system and there are great things happing in many other States as well, but what I pick up is this - that every health and hospital system right across Australia can still improve further and that's what local communities are saying to us, that's what local doctors are saying to us, that's what local nurses are saying to us.
Can I say, any Premier who thinks that their system is working just fine and dandy and can't be improved further, that Premier is just kidding themselves. That goes for Victoria, that goes for every State across the country and what we're about, on about, is making those changes possible.
JOURNALIST: Do you think your visit here today will help you counter resistance? (inaudible)
PM: Can I just say, as we put together our policy over many, many months, both Nicola and myself visited many hospitals right across Melbourne and I remember visiting the Northern hospital here in Melbourne and I'm sure Nicola visited a number of others as well. The bottom line is this, our experience right across the board is that there are great things going on in the health and hospital services of Australia, and in Victoria as well, but people are looking to what we do to put this onto a secure funding base for the future so that we can lift health and hospital services for the future.
As I said, any Premier, I think is kidding themselves to think that local people are 100 per cent satisfied with how the health and hospital system is at present. They're not. What we're on about is how do we improve it further by a system which is funded nationally but, most importantly, run locally.
JOURNALIST: How will-
PM: Sorry. I'll take this one here and then you.
JOURNALIST: Despite your earlier (inaudible) heath reform a couple of years ago about ending the blame game. Do you think the States, who are opposing this, are standing in the way of that?
PM: I think all, I would call upon all Premiers and Chief Ministers to put the blame game to bed and get on with the business of properly reforming and funding the system for the future, one which is funded nationally and run locally.
We can continue to have rolling squabbles about this and get nowhere for the benefit of patients in this area or patients right across Australia. I think the Australian people want us to get on with it and we, the Australian Government, are determined to do so.
This reform it's, this, is an idea whose time has come. That is a nationally funded, locally run health and hospital system for Australia. If we simply left things as they were, the blame game would continue, waste would continue and on top of that, quite frankly the health budgets would crush most of the states budgets within the next 20 or 30 years completely, and they wouldn't be able to do anything else. That's why we're doing what we're doing, now.
Sorry you had another question.
JOURNALIST: When will we see the funding? John Brumby said (inaudible)
PM: Well let me just go to that point, which I know John has raised, and give you a few facts and figures.
Number one - from 2009 to 2014, the Australian Government has already decided to increase funding to the Victorian health system by 50 per cent; that is $5.1 billion additional investment by us compared with the previous health agreement with the previous Australian Government. That flows through in 2009, 2010, '11, '12, '13. That money, that extra $5.1 billion dollars from the Australian Government is flowing through into the Victorian health and hospital system now.
Second point is this - beyond that because the Australian Government will be taking on long-term responsibility for the overall funding of the scheme, and become the dominant funders of the future, we will therefore be taking on $3.8 billion dollars worth of funding burden from the Victorian Government which they would otherwise have to bear themselves.
So we've got $5 billion now flowing through over the next four years ahead, and beyond that the Australian Government taking $3.8 billion off the shoulders of the Victorian Government - I would have thought there were a few local transport priorities here in Victoria and Melbourne which may need to be attended to.
Third part of the answer is this - I've just pointed to areas where for the first time the Australian Government has stepped up to the plate and started investing in the actual physical buildings of hospitals and the equipment that they have here at the Sunshine Hospital, one or two operating theatres, a teaching facility attached to the hospital. If you're concerned about cancer care we have now agreed to build a new comprehensive cancer care centre for all of Melbourne, for wider Victoria, at Parkville. The Australian Government's investment in that is $426 million. We are 50 per cent co-funders in this major facility for cancer care with the Victorian Government for the future. Now that building hasn't commenced yet.
So you ask the question, or Mr Brumby asked the question, 'where's the money?', well $5.1 billion now for the next four years, secondly saving the State $3.8 billion dollars and thirdly, already investing in major cancer centres like the one I've just spoken of before.
The previous Australian Government did not invest one zack in the building of hospitals or those sorts of capital works for the health system - they left it all to the States.
JOURNALIST: Just on another matter Prime Minister, there are reports that (inaudible) Christmas Island (inaudible)
PM: My advice is that the - you're talking about the report in The Australian today?- my advice is the report in The Australian is incorrect.
My advice is that around 2,040 people can currently be accommodated on Christmas Island. Works underway, as we've already indicated, on a new 400 bed additional facility in the main detention centre, which will expand the capacity to about 2,300 people, and beyond that, no others plans exist.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) Hobart (inaudible) at the request of the Japanese (inaudible)
PM: The first thing I'll say about whaling is this - the Australian Government made its position very clear; either the Government of Japan agrees to reduce its current catch, from where it is to zero, within a reasonable time, or the Australian Government will prosecute this matter in an international court of justice, and we would initiate that action prior to the next whaling season commencing, that's the first point.
The second is, in terms of whether or not the Sea Shepherd has in any way violated any relevant law where Australian authorities are involved, that properly lies within the decision making processes of the Australian Federal Police. No Australian Government is going to interfere with the independent processes of the Australian Federal Police. They will investigate this matter on its merits, and make their own decisions on its merits; that's as it should be. It's purely, as it should be, a law enforcement matter. As for the position of the Government of Japan, that's a matter for them to describe themselves.
And having said all that, oh, OK, local newspapers, no, no, that's fine, over to you.
JOURNALIST: Mr Rudd in a local publication a doctor from this hospital said there needs to be at least another 600 beds across Victoria, and this new form of funding will not create any extra hospital beds, would you (inaudible) more hospital beds in Victoria?
PM: First thing I'd say is this, in answer to the question that was asked of me before, there is currently $5.1 billion now flowing, by way of additional investment from the Australian Government to the Victorian health service, capable of creating a large number of additional hospital beds, that's the first point.
The second is this, the reason why we are bringing about a National Health and Hospitals Network is so that we can properly expand the number of hospital beds in the future, confident that waste, duplication and overlap has been eliminated.
Therefore on the question of future hospital beds there's already $5.1 billion of additional funding out there in the system; secondly we are also, in our Nationals Health and Hospitals Network, have established a system which can grow hospital beds, and the number of doctors, and the number of nurses, into the future.
Therefore we believe we've got the right policy approach, not just to get the funding and structure right for the future to eliminate waste, but to grow the system including growing the number of hospital beds, growing the number of doctors, and growing the number of nurses as well; that's what we intend to do, driven by local hospital networks which are very much in touch with the needs of their local communities, including the one you represent through the Star Newspaper.
I've got to head off now, thanks. I've really got to go.
[ENDS]