Mr LINDSAY (1:50 PM) —For over two weeks I have been asking constituents in my electorate in Townsville—Australia's largest tropical city, where it was 28 degrees and beautiful yesterday—to sign a letter to the Premier of Queensland demanding that he fix the problems at the Townsville hospital. To date I have had over 5,000 responses. These are all signed letters to the Premier of Queensland.

Week after week there are ongoing problems with the Townsville hospital. I have asked the Premier to please sign the new five-year Commonwealth health care agreement. That Commonwealth health care agreement offers an extra $851 million to Queensland. But at this stage the position of the Queensland state government is: `We don't accept.' All the Commonwealth ask of the states is this. First of all, we ask them to spend the money that we provide for hospitals actually on hospitals. I think that is entirely reasonable. The second thing we ask is that the states match with their own funding the increase that we are providing—17 per cent in real terms over the next five years. What is the Queensland state government saying? They are saying, `No; we refuse.' That is not good enough. We have to have a proper public hospital system and a timely public hospital system. Tonight on A Current Affair there is a follow-up on a problem for a patient in Townsville. The woman on the program had breast cancer and could not get radiation treatment. (Time expired)