Joe O’Brien – ABC2

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PDF printable version of Joe O’Brien – ABC2 (PDF 21 KB)

8 April 2010

E & OE –

Subjects: Regional Cancer Centres, Health Reform, COAG

Virginia Trioli: Now the Federal Government has announced the latest instalment of its health spending.

Joe O’Brien: The Prime Minister committed 560 million dollars to new and upgraded cancer centres in regional areas. Health Minister Nicola Roxon is at Melbourne airport and she joins us now. Minister good morning.

Nicola Roxon: Good morning.

Joe O’Brien: Now, this money was put aside in last year’s budget to improve cancer treatment in regional areas, it’s not new money and it’s not going to help get premiers like John Brumby on board for the COAG meeting, is it?

Nicola Roxon: No, look it’s designed to actually improve cancer services for patients who live in rural and regional Australia. I was frankly devastated to discover, when I became Health Minister, that the outcomes if you’re diagnosed with cancer in rural and regional Australia can be up to three times worse than if you live in urban areas, now that’s just not acceptable. We put aside money in last year’s budget, we’ve gone through an assessed application and independent assessment process and now we’re making announcements of the investments that are going to deliver really vital services to people whether they’re in Ballarat or Albury, where I’m heading today, or Townsville or Tamworth, it’s a very important investment that we’re making.

Joe O’Brien: To what extent is this going to improve the chances of survival for rural people with cancer?

Nicola Roxon: Well very significantly. What we know is that unfortunately many people in rural and regional Australia who are diagnosed with cancer either cannot, or choose not to, travel significant distances for long periods of treatment. Being able to have these major new regional cancer centres and significant investments and enhancements of existing cancer centres means that people will be able to make that choice more easily, means their families will be able to be closer to their loved ones when they’re getting treatment and of course that ultimately will improve the survival rates because more people will be receiving treatment that they can actually cope with, in terms of their family lives.

Joe O’Brien: Now, no one is denying that it’s great to be improving these services all over Australia, but The Australian has added some of the figures up with your Health and Hospitals funding and is it fair enough to accuse you of pork barrelling with this? Do you accept that 78% of this funding has gone to Labor areas?

Nicola Roxon: No, look I don’t accept that accusation at all. Cancer doesn’t choose whether you’re a Liberal voter or a Labor voter or a National voter and we haven’t..

Joe O’Brien: Not this funding in particular, but the Health and Hospitals funding generally.

Nicola Roxon: This is a major part of the funding. I think what is not being taken into account is that some significant investments, for example in Victoria, where I am today, investments in the Parkville Cancer Centre, it’s a 420 million dollar investment by the Commonwealth. Now it’s in the CBD in Parkville, that happens to be a Labor seat, but it services the entire state, so when you hold some of the metropolitan hubs across the country, of course you’re going to have some of your leading research and health services in those areas.

And in fact one of the reasons that we’re making the announcements about regional cancer is because we don’t think the balance is right. You’re always going to have critical mass in your CBDs, but you’ve got to make sure that you have significant services in rural and regional Australia as well. So I think that’s far too simplistic.

The announcements in Victoria, they’re in National seats, they’re in Liberal seats, they’re in Labor seats, some of them are ones that our Government will never win and hold, but that doesn’t mean that we believe that those people shouldn’t have support.

It’s actually why I’m flying to Albury today, to make the announcements about 6.5 million dollars that will be provided to Albury-Wodonga for a PET scanner, for a patient accommodation facility, these are good investments and they should not be politicised.

Joe O’Brien: Even taking into account that there are Labor seats in the cities where you’re putting some of these facilities, it does seem to be a fair bit out of whack, doesn’t it, 78% of this funding going into Labor areas?

Nicola Roxon: No, look I really don’t think that that is sustainable, when you look at a large investment like one of over 400 million dollars, of course you can skew that with a big investment which is a state-wide, of state-wide significance. But I’m very confident that this has all been done with an arms length process advising us of the suitability of infrastructure projects. That was never done by the previous Government. We established an independent board to make sure that every project we’re funding meets the highest quality guidelines and I think that they are important investments and people would be struggling to find any that shouldn’t be made.

Joe O’Brien: Just finally, Minister, it seems that the biggest sticking point as we go into this COAG meeting is John Brumby wanting immediate funding to improve the health system and the Federal Government not willing to put that up at this stage. Is there, can you give us any indication of any movement on that now, going into this meeting are you prepared to compromise and pump some money immediately into State health systems?

Nicola Roxon: Well we are already pumping money into State health systems…

Joe O’Brien: New, but new money.

Nicola Roxon: Well Victoria has been a beneficiary of that and I don’t think you can blame Premiers for asking for more money but you wouldn’t blame us for saying have a look what we’re already giving you as well, because we have turned around a lack of investment by the previous Government to the order of a 50% increase. Of course over the next two weeks there’s going to be discussions, I had a very lengthy discussion with the Victorian Health Minister just last night. I’m meeting with the New South Wales Health Minister today. Of course we’re going to continue to discuss issues of importance, but I’m very confident that we’re all trying to deliver better health services to the community and it’s vital for the public that we get this deal right at COAG and that’s absolutely what I’m putting my effort into.

Joe O’Brien: So there is a chance you will put up new money?

Nicola Roxon: Well, we’ve made clear that there are additional investments to come. We’ve been talking with the States and Territories about investments in areas of pressure points, like emergency services and elective services. We will continue to have those discussions, we will continue to make announcements like the Prime Minister and I made in Cairns at the start of the week on Allied Health professionals, like those that we’ve already made in terms of investing in our Medical Workforce, but some of those discussions will be behind closed doors as you would expect and really they all culminate in the meeting on Monday the 19th.

Joe O’Brien: OK, Nicola Roxon thanks very much for talking to us before you head off to Albury.

Nicola Roxon: No problems.