Mrs DARLING(3.54) —A number of cold, hard facts have been covered up by a lot of the hot air that is being generated in statements from the Government side of the House regarding the most recent health mess. The statements just made by the Minister for Health (Mr MacKellar) have done nothing to alleviate this mess. The ill logic in the statement that the States have not been running their hospital schemes efficiently and therefore the Federal Government will withdraw entirely not only from funding but also from any position in which it could inject some efficiency into the hospitals, is unbelievable. We now see that the Government believes that by standing back the hospitals will magically become efficient. The Minister has also indulged in very selective quoting. He quoted from the report of the Jamison Commission of Inquiry into the Efficiency and Administration of Hospitals to back his very spurious arguments. But, in fact, the Jamison report stated that the Queensland hospital scheme is the most efficient scheme and has the most efficient administration in Australia. Yet it is this very scheme which the Goverment is moving to dismantle.

The Minister also quoted the Queensland State Health Minister, Mr Brian Austin, again very selectively. The Minister quoted Mr Austin as saying, in the Telegraph of Wednesday, 22 April:

. . . the individual who uses the free out-patients or the free hospital system, who can afford to pay, needs to examine his own conscience on this matter.

He completely neglected to quote further. Mr Austin went on to say:

It has been stated by the Commonwealth that the states will be forced to means test at public hospitals. This statement would indicate that the Commonwealth has absolutely no idea of what's involved in the running and operation of a public hospital system.

I find it entirely objectionable that different little facts are taken out of context to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the Australian public. Many facts have been hidden. I would like to speak on behalf of ordinary Australians who have been affected by this Government's complete neglect of a decent health insurance system. The Australian Labor Party is the only party which is concerned with health costs and which supports a health insurance scheme which meets the needs of ordinary Australians. The Labor members of this House are the only members who support the retention of Queensland's free hospital scheme, which the Jamison report-the report on which this Government is basing its action-describes as the most efficient system in Australia.

I would like to point out these further facts: Prior to the introduction of Medibank, Queensland's free hospital system was on its last legs; it was on the point of collapse and could not have gone on. I speak from close experience, my father having been the shadow Minister for Health in the Queensland Parliament at the time. When Medibank was introduced the Government injected the necessary funds into the scheme and it, as honourable members have heard, has become the most efficient in Australia. In its original form Medibank was also very acceptable to the electorate. In my electorate of Lilley doctors were afraid before the introduction of Medibank that everything would fall into shambles. After its introduction, those doctors actually supported Medibank because it was much more efficient and it gave proper health treatment to everyone without the doctors having long lists of bad debts.

This Government, instead of being honest and dropping the scheme, as contrary to its private enterprise philosophy, has worked consistently to put health insurance out of the reach of middle and lower income earners. It has succeeded. There are hundreds and thousands of people who now cannot afford medical care or medical health insurance. People in Queensland have been forced into out-patient departments or they have had to stay home and go without the treatment they need. In recent months the out-patient departments in hospitals have been overflowing. With this scenario as a background, this Government now moves to withdraw funding not only from Queensland but also from all the States, as positive proof of its lack of interest in any health insurance scheme.

It is particularly ironic that the Government's two week-old health policy, suffering symptoms of terminal prevarication, should come unstuck at the very time that the Government has never been more unhealthy. This indecisive, disintegrating Government, showing symptoms of its last dying days in office, is thrashing about looking desperately for some direction for its policies. The fact that Cabinet fidgeted and fussed over hospital funding arrangements for four months indicates its divisiveness and the lack of leadership at the helm. These indications that Government policy was drifting aimlessly were confirmed by the extraordinary events of the past two weeks and particularly the events of yesterday. It is typical of the inefficiency continually displayed in the Government's administration of health services. As my colleague the honourable member for Bonython (Dr Blewett) pointed out, the philosophy linking the Government's health policy and its hospital arrangements is that the sick pay. The user pays principle does not apply; the sick pay. We all know which economic group in society is the most prone to sickness and hospitalisation: it is those who are too poor to afford stable and nourishing diets and those who cannot afford regular medical check-ups which enable diagnosis and treatment of illness in its early stages.

The Queensland Minister for Health said recently that, if the Federal Government had its way, Albert Schweitzer's inscription outside his African jungle hospital would have read: 'Here, in whatever hour you come, you will find the light and help of human kindness, if you have got enough to pay'. The words of the Federal Minister for Health two weeks ago were: 'If you are willing to pay for yourselves'. This is the Government's motto and its approach to the provision of health services to the public. It is the old survival of the fittest and wealthiest principle, a social Darwinist approach to health. The poor pay through the teeth.

Yesterday marked the anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birthday. I am sure she must be turning in her grave. In the health field this Government has replaced the sorts of principles that Florence Nightingale represented with the cold hard doctrines of Ayn Rand. This Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser), who beats the drum of co-operative federalism and who, until a couple of weeks ago, boasted that Federal-State relations had never been better, did not even have the nerve to consult the States on the new Commonwealth provisions for health services. Right up until the Minister's statement was made in this House, State Health Ministers were guessing about the form in which the Federal Government's assistance would be provided, whether it would be by absorption in general revenue grants or by block grants as recommended in the Jamison report.

The Prime Minister and his Cabinet cronies ride roughshod over the States in the same fashion as they steamroll Ministers who do not completely toe the Fraser line, in the same way that they contemptuously ignore the view of their own increasingly restless and rebellious Government backbench and in the very same way that they handle the business of disseminating information about the process of Government policy-making by selective leaking to the media. We are told that the devolution of responsibility and blame for the country's system of health will supposedly grant greater freedom to the States because hospital assistance will now be absorbed in the category of general revenue grants and the States will have greater flexibility and discretion in the distribution of federal money. What they do not say is that there will be substantially less federal money to go around. Besides that, anything that offers the Government of Mr Bjelke-Petersen greater dictatorial power, greater manoeuvrability and greater leverage, must raise fears even in the stoutest hearts. I have little sympathy for the predicament of the Queensland Government in this matter. After all, it continually supports the Prime Minister's now very publicised manic obsession to withdraw government services, devolve powers to the States and to leave people generally to fend for themselves. Now that the Federal Government extends that principle to the Queensland Government so that it must fend for itself, it is screaming blue murder. For many years, Queensland had to pay a financial penalty to a Federal Liberal Party Government for providing this service. Two weeks ago, the Minister, while calling for deinstitutionalisation with one breath, introduced, with the next breath, measures designed to kill individual associations and to fortify institutionalisation. I refer to the lumping together of a number of services such as the school dental scheme.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Millar) —Order! The honourable member's time has expired.