Mr BRENDAN O'CONNOR (5:41 PM) —I move matters from the particular concerns of the member for Ryan to matters that affect the nation. There is nothing more important to this country than our health care system. It is important, therefore, that this chamber spends most of its time debating matters of state—the matters that concern ordinary Australians. Their need to have proper health services provided to them and their families is a top priority of the Labor Party.

Therefore, to say the least, it bemused me and others when the cabinet reshuffle was determined about 10 days ago now to find the former Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations filling the position of the Minister for Health and Ageing. It certainly surprised me that a renowned and, you could say, self-declared head kicker would be given the very important task of looking after the nation's health system. To some, I am sure, it would appear to be some sort of sick joke.

The fact is that, until being appointed to this position, the minister has spent most of his time finding ways to hurt Australian workers. Indeed, the only reason he has not been entirely successful in that pursuit is that the opposition has not supported the bills that have been before this House and the Labor Party in the Senate and the minor parties have prevented what is clearly very unfair antiworker legislation being introduced. So this minister, having failed to really deliver on the Howard agenda of dismantling fair industrial relations laws, attacking Australia's workers at large and attacking their representatives—trade unions—has now been asked to look after our health system. I have to say that he has got off to an awful start. Effectively, he has failed in any way to redress some of the fundamental problems that we know exist in the health system.

What we have seen from the minister has been some photo opportunities where he has been photographed with a number of GPs and representatives of the AMA. It is clear that, despite his ideological hatred of trade unions, he seems to have one trade union that he does like to endear himself to: the AMA. The AMA, one of the strongest unions in this country, clearly has the measure of the Minister for Health and Ageing. We have seen the minister make more concessions to the AMA in the last week than he has made for the rest of the Australian work force in all his time in the workplace relations portfolio. Clearly this minister is concerned only about those in our society who make $100,000 or more because he has never shown such deference or such respect before for any other worker in this country. It puzzles me that he has shown such respect.

You cannot blame the doctors. The doctors have clearly raised a fundamental concern about insurance and about the failure of this government to address the problems associated with the health system. So far we have seen the minister not only engaging in photo opportunities and trying to provide some positive spin but also looking to defer the problem until after the next election. He initially proposed to minimise payments to $1,000 for each medical practitioner—and then seek resolution, I would guess, some time after the next election. He was not really looking to tackle the problem in this area but rather deferring the problem, putting the problem on the backburner. The minister does not know how to fix this matter and has not outlined the way in which it could be resolved.

In the last few years there has been a significant decline in access to bulk-billing in my electorate. This is a huge problem, and one which I am sure also exists in every other electorate. In the last two years access to bulk-billing in the electorate of Burke has declined from 71 per cent of those visiting a doctor to 59 per cent—a decline of 12 per cent in less than two years. Over a 12-month period there has been an 11 per cent drop in access to bulk-billing. In effect, bulk-billing in my electorate is free-falling. This means that in some areas there is no access whatsoever to doctors who bulk-bill, which is imposing great difficulty upon many families.

I have had the opportunity to speak with some of those families. The Parkinson family in Melton have three children. Jonathan, the husband and father, works not far from home. I know he is a hardworking Australian. His prime objective is providing an income to care for his family. He, his wife and kids are certainly doing it tough. The Parkinson family have found themselves not being able to attend a doctor who bulk-bills, and this is becoming a real problem when more than one of the children falls ill. I know, because I have sat in their home and spoken with them about this matter, that this family have always assumed that Medicare was there for families like them. They are not concession card holders and therefore are not able to assume access to bulk-billing. Indeed many medical services that once provided bulk-billing in Melton have now ceased to do so. The Parkinson family's concerns are just one of many thousands of examples that could be raised in this place by many members on both sides if the truth be told. Something has to be done about this and, to date, no effort has been made by the new minister. He has failed to start addressing the main concerns.

Last Friday week, I had the good fortune to meet with Jon Evans, the Acting CEO of Western Health. He was invited to a forum attended by me and the shadow minister for health, Julia Gillard. At that forum Mr Evans outlined his responsibilities as the Acting CEO of Western Health. He indicated that the Western Health region covered the Sunshine Hospital, the Western Hospital, the Williamstown Hospital, Reg Geary House and the Hazeldean Nursing Home. In his address to the forum, Mr Evans stated that in the last year there has been a significant increase in the number of people using the emergency departments of those hospitals and that within 12 months there had been a rise of more than 10 per cent in the number of people attending the emergency departments of the Sunshine, Western and Williamstown hospitals. Of that 10 per cent, 70 per cent of the increase in the number of presentations to Western Health emergency departments were triage categories 4 and 5. Those triage categories are the semi-urgent and non-urgent categories—categories that the emergency departments of hospitals would not normally be expected to attend to. These cases are increasing as a result of the failure of the government on a number of counts—firstly, as he has indicated, the shortage of doctors; and, secondly, the significant and recent decline in bulk-billing around the region. He believed these were the main reasons that there were major problems in and major pressures on the emergency departments of those hospitals. (Time expired)