PM: It's good to be here with Tim Hammond, who's our candidate for the seat of Swan, and good to be here at Bentley Clinic, which is run by the Canning Division of General Practice. It's been good to see what is done on the ground here by General Practice. What we have is flexible out-of-hours services provided by GPs after five, and using these premises to provide specialist services during working hours for patients who need it from this wider community.
It's a good example of what divisions of General Practice are already doing on the ground in terms of providing good, generalised health care for the community. I've been impressed with the conversations I've had with the staff here and what they are seeking to do in preventative care and primary care and also in chronic disease management for patients.
Of course, this is part and parcel of where the Australian Government wants to take the new national health and hospital network, which is why I'm in WA at the present. The new national health and hospital network will be funded nationally, run locally, and for the first time the Australian Government taking on the dominant funding role for the entire Australian public hospital system.
But one other arm of what we're doing is this - that is, for the Australian Government to take on total funding responsibility for primary health care. That's what GPs do in the community, and that's what allied health professionals, so many of them represented here, do in the community as well. Because, unless we get that arm of health care right, as well as the hospitals, as well as aged care, we are bringing about an incomplete reform, and we need to deal with an integrated reform of the entire system.
Therefore, we will be seeking to learn from the experiences here at this Bentley Clinic in terms of where we take primary health care reform in the future.
The other point I'd make is this: reforming primary health care, reforming the hospital system - I went to Princess Margaret's kids hospital yesterday - reforming aged care, all of this only works if you're also making sure you're delivering the lifeblood of the system, which is the future medical workforce of the country as well. GPs here are the lifeblood of the local delivery of health services to this community.
We've looked at the figures. Without any change, this country will be short of 3,000 GPs over the course of the next decade, and that's just to maintain existing health services provided by GPs, before we even start to improve them.
GPs in rural areas are complaining, in many cases entirely legitimately, of being burnt out. You find the same with GPs working excessive hours in metro areas as well.
That's why the Australian Government has put its best foot forward with its plan to provide an additional 6,000-plus medical training places, 5,500 of them GPs over the coming decade, starting with an increase next year, raising our overall number of annual training places for GPs from 600 to 900 then progressively up to 1,200 in order to fill that gap and improve the number of Australian-trained GPs in the system overall.
We need to do the same in terms of the future needs of our nursing workforce, the allied health professionals, as well. These men and women are the lifeblood of our health and hospital system, and we've seen some of the excellent work they do here at the Bentley clinic today.
Over to you, folks.
JOURNALIST: The latest Newspoll shows that support for the state government here in (inaudible) and does that give you concern federally here in the west, especially in marginal seats like Swan, here?
PM: My job as Prime Minister is to work with premiers from every state and of every political party to bring about health and hospital reform for the nation, and I will be talking with all premiers, all chief ministers, from large states, small states, Labor, Liberal, Caluthumpian, in order to bring about health and hospital reform for the long term. That means working with the WA Liberal Government as well, and I had good conversations yesterday with Colin Barnett and with Troy Buswell. We're working our way through the detail of our reform plan, but our job is simply to make this work.
People are sick and tired of the politicians of whichever party just playing the finger-pointing game at each other. Instead, what they want is for politicians to point to the way ahead, to bring about real changes to the system. That's why we'll continue to work with the Government of WA. They are elected by the West Australian people and our job is to work in partnership with them.
JOURNALIST: The Reserve Bank this morning has warned of housing bubbles and likely interest rate rises. What's your response to that?
PM: I haven't seen the text of what the RBA has put out today, but could I say this - our challenge in the last year and a half has been to protect the Australian economy from going into recession. The Australian Government has taken strong and decisive action to protect the economy, support jobs, apprenticeships and small business, and to keep our economy from falling into recession, which is what happened right across the rest of the advanced world.
This economy of ours has been the fastest growing economy, with the second-lowest unemployment and the lowest debt and the lowest deficit of all the major advanced economies, and we didn't go into recession. What's the net result of that? We've kept hundreds of thousands of people in jobs who would otherwise have lost their jobs.
Look at the unemployment rate in New Zealand, just across the Tasman. Look at the difference in terms of our unemployment rate there. If that unemployment rate was replicated here in Australia, hundreds of thousands of people would not be with jobs today, and we would be being asked questions about how you provide, frankly, an income for working families.
Now, we're into a different part of the economic challenge now, which is having successfully negotiated the global crisis, how do we build the right foundations for our long-term economic future. That's tough, but part of it means maintaining tough financial management so that we are producing a disciplined fiscal policy in the future of the type that was outlined in the last budget, which we are continuing to implement and will implement into the future.
JOURNALIST: Do you have a concern that Tourism Australia may have been involved in (inaudible)
PM: I'm pretty worried, Geof, about the reports that I've seen - pretty worried - and it sounds pretty off to me, but I'd like to get to the bottom of it first. I was asked about this this morning, I think, on radio here in Perth. I'm getting to the bottom of what actually happened here. I think all of us, or, sorry, let me correct myself here, many of us grew up in the days of Skippy, and you know something? If you've grown up in the days of Skippy you want to make sure that our national symbol is being properly respected in the way in which Australia projects itself abroad.
I would want to get to the bottom of it first.
JOURNALIST: If it is as it seems, though (inaudible)?
PM: Well, there's a big preface to your question, Geof - 'if' - and I really want to get to the bottom of it. I just think when you're dealing with the good name of Australia, you've got to be very careful. When you're dealing with the proper treatment of animals, you've got to be very careful, and I don't like the reports that I've seen. I really don't, but I want to get to the bottom of it.
JOURNALIST: Do you have any details about the Australian citizen that was arrested in Kenya in connection with (inaudible)?
PM: First of all, I'm aware of reports to that effect. Secondly, I have not received advice from our security intelligence authorities or law enforcement authorities on that. I would reserve comment until I have.
JOURNALIST: The AFP is heading to Dubrovnik. Are you hoping they'll get to the bottom of what happened to Brit Lapthorne?
PM: This has been a tragic case, and we need to make sure that every effort is made to make sure that the right thing is done here and if the AFP can help in that then I'm sure they will. They are a very fine, professional body of police and I'm sure they are doing everything within their powers to assist.
JOURNALIST: A large chunk of Medibank Private members face having increased premiums by up to 50 percent if they want to maintain their cover for surgeries including heart operations and hip replacements. Are you concerned by this?
PM: I think everyone should take a long, hard look at what their private health insurance funds are doing. Can I say that if people are unhappy with their private health insurance arrangements what they should be doing is going to the comparison website - www.privatehealth.gov.au - and the reason for it is this: using plain English, which everyone can understand, what you get from which fund, for how much money, and I would strongly encourage Australian consumers to do that and work out whether they are getting value for money and that would go to what's reported as having been done by Medibank Private, as well.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the GST is shaping as a bit of a stumbling block with your health plan over here in the West. How are you going to get past what is shaping as a bit of an impasse between you and Colin Barnett?
PM: Well, I've got to say Colin and I had a great conversation yesterday which went over a couple of hours. We went through, basically, the A-Z of health and hospital reform and the A-Z of how do you finance health and hospital reform.
And you know something? Rome's not built in a day. You've got to take it step by step. We'll be meeting again, I believe, prior to the Council of Australian Governments meeting later in April, but, obviously, there are areas of remaining disagreement, a lot of areas of agreement as well.
We take these step by step with each state. WA is important in this. People of WA, 2 million people, deserve the best health and hospital services that we can deliver, and what I'm overall concerned about is this: if I look at the future, rolling out in 10 and 20 years' time, 30 years' time, if I look at the current rate of growth of state health budgets, I look at the current rate of growth of their taxation base, the gap that is emerging is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Someone has got to fill that gap.
We, the Australian Government, are putting our best foot forward to try and fill that gap by taking on the lion's share of the growth of the system for the long term, but we'll still work through the finance details with the premiers and chief ministers. Treasurers are meeting in the days ahead. Treasury officials are meeting on a continuing basis. There's quite a lot of detailed number crunching to be done around this, but we'll be putting every element of effort in it.
And having said that, folks, I think I'm about to zip. Thanks very much.