Mr OAKESHOTT (2:37 PM) —My question is to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, will you agree to join me and personally visit the Port Macquarie Base Hospital for the following four outcomes: (1) to gain a major regional teaching hospital’s perspective on your health reform package and to see how the three towns of Kempsey, Wauchope and Port Macquarie are developing a ‘one hospital on three sites’ response to the growing health demands within our nation; (2) to consider the specific infrastructure needs around the hospital’s emergency department and intensive care unit that is operating at double its maximum capacity on a daily basis; (3) to explore opportunities to expand our cancer services with the already announced but yet to be allocated money from this year’s health budget; and (4) to explore a proposal by the local division of GPs to establish a GP superclinic or equivalent as close as possible to the overstretched emergency department at the hospital?

Mr RUDD (Prime Minister) —I thank the honourable member for Lyne for his question. The short answer to his question is yes. The Minister for Health and Ageing and I at some stage over the next couple of months will work our way to Port Macquarie and do as we have done most recently at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, the Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide, the Townsville Hospital and the Cairns Base Hospital—that is, sit down with the honourable member’s local health and hospital community and road-test the recommendations which have been put forward by the Bennett commission of inquiry on the future of the health and hospital system.

I noted in particular the contents of his question went in part to the state of accident and emergency and to the state of intensive care. I noted also his question went to the equitable provision of cancer care services and also to the need for better primary health care, and he raised in particular the point concerning GP related services and the possibility of GP superclinics. I am sure the honourable member is now familiar with the contents of the recommendations of the Bennett health reform commission report, and it goes to each of these categories. It goes to: how do we provide better primary health care across the country with more flexible hours and with more GP related services in order partly to take pressure off the acute hospital system, acute care beds and accident and emergency by having more of those concerns, which families legitimately encounter, dealt with in the community through the provision of those services? That is one aspect of it. The second, of course, goes to the proper provision of resources for accident and emergency.

The health minister, as the honourable member may be familiar with, recently negotiated a new agreement with the states and territories of some $750 million to provide better access to accident and emergency across the country for the immediate period ahead. I am advised this is the first time that the Commonwealth has so engaged in a specific purpose payment with the states and territories specifically targeted at A&E. We did so about 12 months ago in relation to elective surgery, the first time the Commonwealth has engaged in a specific purpose payment to increase the number of elective surgery treatments. I understand from the health minister that that agreement with the states and territories resulted in an additional 40,000 elective surgery procedures across the country.

Ms Roxon interjecting—

Mr RUDD —She advises me that half a million dollars of that was invested into elective surgery arrangements at Port Macquarie.

On cancer related services, the honourable member will be familiar with the fact that in the budget we announced some $1.2 billion worth of cancer related services, because we are deeply concerned about the proper provision of what are called comprehensive cancer care services not just in our large cities but across the country. The honourable member will be familiar with the support which the government has so far provided to what will become the Chris O’Brien centre in Sydney. In Melbourne there has been considerable investment also on our part—in partnership, I believe, with the government of Victoria—in the MacCallum centre, which is being built at Parkville. On top of that, there are investments of a more comprehensive nature in various other health regions across the nation. He is right to say: what is the proper provision of cancer related services in his part of New South Wales? I am sure the consultations which we will undertake in and around Port Macquarie hospital will help inform decisions which are taken in the future on the proper provision of those services as well.

We fully understand, based on the advice provided to the government by Dr Bennett’s health reform commission report and the 123 recommendations contained within it, that our health and hospital system across the nation is increasingly at a tipping point. The reason for that is that, firstly, we have an increasing population, particularly in the region where the honourable member lives but also in parts of Queensland where I have just been as well—in Far North Queensland, in North Queensland and elsewhere. Secondly, we have, of course, the ageing of the population. We have, thirdly, the increased cost associated with individual medical and hospital treatments and, fourthly, the increasing cost of pharmaceuticals. We therefore need to look at how we better design this system for the future for all Australians, wherever they live—in metropolitan Australia, in regional Australia and in rural Australia, and in remote Australia and our Indigenous communities as well.

I commend to all honourable members the report delivered by Dr Bennett and the recommendations contained within it. We will be road-testing those across the country. We look forward to the opportunity to visit the honourable member’s hospital at Port Macquarie to specifically get their responses, as we have done most recently in Cairns, Townsville, Adelaide and Sydney, to the recommendations contained in the report. I look forward to organising the details of that with the honourable member through the health minister’s office.