Mr BARTLETT (5:57 PM) —The hypocrisy and deceit of the member for Dobell (Mr Lee) is astounding, even by Labor Party standards. I think he spent too long reading the Labor Party campaign manual and not enough time researching the facts. I suggest the member for Dobell might take a look at the budget papers to correct some of the rubbish he has just sprouted about supposed cuts in health care funding.

Let me inform him of these facts. In the last year of the Labor government, Commonwealth government funding on hospitals was $5.49 billion. In the first year of the coalition government, it rose to $5.61 billion, in the second year to $6 billion and in this recent budget to $6.7 billion. That is an increase of $600 million over the first two years or, counting this next year, an increase of $1,244 million in Commonwealth government funding to public hospitals.

If you look at the total health care budget, the rise is even more significant. In Labor's last year, Labor spent $18,633 million. In the coalition's first year, it was raised to $19,294 million, in the second year to $20,734 million and in this year's budget to $22,273 million. That is an increase over those three years of $3.6 billion.

Even the member for Dobell should know the difference between an increase and a decrease. If it rises in three years by $3.6 billion, it goes up, not down. That, for the member for Dobell, is an increase, not a decrease; it is an addition, not a cut. I am sure even the member for Dobell would understand that an increase of $3.6 billion is a significant increase in government funding for the health care system.

The Health Care (Appropriation) Bill 1998 is necessary because of the Premiers' refusal earlier in the year to accept the Commonwealth's five-year health care agreement. It delivers in full the health funding offer made at the Premiers Conference in March. As the Commonwealth is unwilling to wait any longer to ensure the continuity of funding for state hospitals, it is necessary to introduce this supplementary legislation. In other words, the government has to introduce extra legislation to overcome the petulance of the state Premiers and to ensure adequate funding for public hospitals, in spite of the stunt of the Premiers and in spite of the stunt of the member for Dobell.

Two main points need to be made in this context. Firstly, contrary to the deceit of the opposition, this government is committed to maintaining the integrity of the health care system and of the public health system. This involves both maintaining Medicare and ensuring a workable private health system. It is imperative that all Australians, regardless of means and regardless of circumstances, have access to quality hospital services. The coalition is committed to exactly that. It is committed to maintaining Medicare. I say again for the members of the opposition: the government is committed to maintaining Medicare.

The government is committed to ensuring universally available acute health care services. This supplementary legislation before the house demonstrates that commitment, in spite of the lack of cooperation of most of the state governments and in spite of the posturing of the opposition. The bill includes a prerequisite, for the states to receive funding under this bill, that they adhere to the principles of ensuring universal access to health and emergency services free of charge on the basis of clinical need and within clinically appropriate periods, regardless of the patient's location.

It is worth again noting the details of the five-year Medicare offer that was rejected by the Premiers and that was just criticised inaccurately and incorrectly by the member for Dobell. This offer was a very fair and very reasonable one. The offer was for $30.17 billion over the next five years, up from $24.99 billion in the previous agreement. That is an increase of 15 per cent in real terms over Labor's forward estimates. This is a significant point: not only was it an increase over the past agreement, not only was it an increase over what Labor last negotiated, but also it was an increase over Labor's own forward estimates. Those were estimates they could not have met themselves, but they are estimates which we are not only meeting but in fact exceeding.

The offer includes an 11 per cent increase in the base level funding. It also includes significantly an indexation factor to cover increasing costs. This is important in light of the distortions by the member for Dobell. This indexation covers factors such as the growth and ageing of the population, the increasing costs of hospital services and, importantly, any reductions in private health insurance. It also includes, on top of that increase in the base level of funding, $500 million for mental health and palliative care. In addition to that, it includes another $750 million to fund veteran health care at full cost over the next five years. Not only is this a great boost to the veteran community, includ ing the extension of the gold health card to another 50,000 World War II veterans, but also it takes some of the pressure off the public hospital system. The package also included $500 million for projects aimed at restructuring the health care system.

I note that the Queensland and ACT governments have accepted the $23 million offered under the critical and urgent treatment waiting list scheme of the $120 million offered. The needy in the other states are missing out. Yet the member for Dobell would encourage the other Premiers to stand firm and encourage them not to accept that offer and encourage them to maintain the lengthy waiting lists and encourage them not to accept this extra $120 million that the Commonwealth government is offering to immediately reduce the waiting lists in state public hospitals.

The second point that needs to be made is that a quality and affordable health care system requires also a viable private health care system. I am sure that even the member for Dobell would accept that without it there is an unsustainable burden on the public health care system. Before Labor came into office in 1983, Australia had a good health system, a workable combination of private health insurance and free public hospitals. It was based on the right principle: if you can look after yourself then you take some responsibility to do so; if you cannot then the public hospital system is there. Both the private and the public system were of high quality—high quality public hospital care and affordable private health insurance.

Then the Labor vandals and wreckers got their hands on Australia's health care system. Thirteen years of Labor saw a steady assault on the quality of our health system. In 1983, over 63 per cent of Australians had private health insurance. By 1996, when Labor was thrown out of office, that figure had declined to close to 32 per cent. This disastrous decline was a result of a number of policy disasters, enacted either out of sheer ignorance by the Labor Party or else in a premeditated desire to destroy the private health system. Early in its time in government, Labor removed the tax rebate on private health insurance pre miums, thereby significantly increasing the real cost of premiums and causing an exodus from private health insurance. I note Labor's desire to remove the current $450 private health insurance rebate and thereby accelerate the decline in private health insurance numbers. Other decisions in those disastrous 13 years, such as a withdrawal of the bed day subsidy and the withdrawal of the reinsurance pool contribution, also added to the cost of private health cover and hastened its decline.

The ideologically blinkered approach may have warmed the hearts of the Labor Left but put growing pressure on the public health care system. There is an estimated rise of $100 million a year on the cost of running the public hospital system for each one per cent drop-out in private health insurance cover. Thus, Labor's failure over their 13 years—in spite of the warnings by their former health minister, Graham Richardson, that something had to be done to address that decline—to halt the decline in membership from 63 per cent to 32 per cent has added $3.1 billion a year to the cost of running the public hospital system. Because of the ideological obsession of the Labor Party, they have added such an unsustainable burden on the public system that it is costing the public system an extra $3.1 billion a year to cater for the extra numbers in the public health care system.

A number of state health ministers—including, significantly, Dr Refshauge—have admitted in recent weeks that this decline in private health insurance has been one of the problems. They acknowledge that the decline in private health membership has placed an intolerable strain on the public system. We have Dr Refshauge on one hand admitting that we need to prop up the private health system to reduce the strain on the public system and we have the member for Dobell on the other hand trying to tear it up. This is typical of the member for Dobell and his colleagues. They are out to destroy the private health system completely and to exacerbate the growing pressures on the public hospital system. They are more interested in ideological purity than in the health care of the Australian community.

This is a demonstration of their shameful ignorance and incompetence. On this issue, as with many others, Labor is driven more by point scoring than by genuine policy debate; driven more by ideological obsession than by sound policy; driven more by political ambition than by any concern for the common good. This government is committed to Medicare. It is committed to ensuring health care for all the needy and it is committed to building a health care system that is workable. This government's commitment stands in sharp contrast to the hypocrisy and nonsense that we have heard from the other side.