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Home > Ministers > The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP - Minister for Health > Media Hub > Transcript - Sky TV - Medicare Locals, MRIs, Newstart - 4 April 2013

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PDF printable version of Transcript - Sky TV - Medicare Locals, MRIs, Newstart - 4 April 2013 (PDF 219 KB)

E&O Only

Topics: Medicare Locals, MRIs, Newstart

Kieran Gilbert: I want to go first to this point that you made yesterday. You've accused the coalition of being duplicitous when it comes to the Medicare local service in the seat of Lindsay, in Sydney's west. What exactly are you accusing them of? Can you clarify that for us?

Tanya Plibersek: Well, it's very clearly coalition policy to get rid of Medicare Locals. Medicare Locals are primary healthcare organisations. So, GPs, nurses, psychologists, speech pathologists, podiatrists, working together to keep people healthy and keep them out of hospital. And they - the coalition said before the 2010 election, they've said since in the media that they'll get rid of Medicare Locals. That's $1.2 billion out of primary healthcare.

Yesterday you saw the coalition health spokesperson out there with their candidate for Lindsay telling the Medicare Local what a great job they're doing. It's a bit rich really to an organisation that you're going to destroy, to tell them what a good job they're doing and then afterwards when the local candidate was challenged about that, she said oh no, it's not our policy to get rid of Medicare Locals.

So she either doesn't know their policy or she's misleading the people of Lindsay about the effect of coalition policy taking $1.2 billion out of primary healthcare.

Kieran Gilbert: But Mr Dutton, the shadow minister, has said repeatedly that he supports links between the GPs and public hospitals. That's pretty much what the Medicare Locals do and, but the point he makes is...

Tanya Plibersek: No, that is not what they do at all.

Kieran Gilbert: Well, what do they do in terms of primary care - in terms of service delivery then?

Tanya Plibersek: They provide... Well, just yesterday, for example, the Nepean Blue Mountains Medicare Local, the one that we're talking about, provides after-hours GP services. I mean there are Medicare Locals all over the country providing direct services and the idea that you can take $1.2 billion out of primary healthcare and it not affect direct service delivery is an absolute nonsense. And the coalition have been...
Kieran Gilbert: He's saying though, but he's saying that the principle for them is to take money away from bureaucratic wages and into frontline services.

Tanya Plibersek: Well, these people aren't bureaucrats.

Kieran Gilbert: You're saying that these - they are delivering frontline services already.

Tanya Plibersek: These people aren't bureaucrats. This is a fiction that the coalition are trying to portray. I mean seven out of every 10 of these people are health professionals. They're delivering all sorts of services. We have a fantastic universal health system in Australia called Medicare. We're very rightly proud of it. But we know that there are plenty of people who could get better service from it.

One example are people who've got chronic conditions like diabetes. It's great. You need to go and see your GP regularly, but you also need to be seeing a dietician, a podiatrist, an optometrist, having a nurse coordinator to help you go through that complex system to make sure you get the best care, stay healthy, stay out of hospital. It's exactly the sort of thing that the Medicare Locals are doing. We've got Medicare Locals who are working with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, transporting chronically ill patients into town to get the sort of treatment they need that will keep them healthier longer...

Kieran Gilbert: Okay.

Tanya Plibersek: ... and still able to live in their communities. And these are terrific services all over Australia providing much needed primary care. The coalition have clearly said that they'll get rid of them and they're playing such a small target strategy in the lead-up to the election that even their own candidates don't know their own health policy.

Kieran Gilbert: Ed Husic yesterday, one of your colleagues in the Labor Party, expressed dismay at the Government spending $20 million or thereabouts on a Disney film while he still can't get an MRI machine at Mount Druitt hospital. Will his community get that machine?

Tanya Plibersek: Well, we've spent $104 million since 2007 for 200 full or partial licences for MRI machines. Ed's run a very good local campaign but I don't hand out MRI machines on the basis of good local campaigning. We do a very strict independent arms length process from me based on the biggest needs in the community. That's not to say that there'll never be a machine in Mount Druitt. It's just to say that there has been a big need right across Australia and as a local member, it is absolutely right and perfectly entitled to argue hard for his community. But I've got to consider communities right across Australia. And I'll do that fairly.

Kieran Gilbert: Will you expect more of these sorts of claims? Wouldn't you from local MPs, from your colleagues in this election year? As you say there are claims everywhere and I know recently you looked at Peter's Project in Warrnambool, Victoria, for a radiotherapy centre there. So there're obviously local claims happening all over the place.
Tanya Plibersek: I'd expect local members to be lobbying for their communities. That's what they do, that's what they should do and I've got to say my Labor colleagues are very quick to knock on my door if they identify a need in their local community. But as a Health Minister, I have to balance those needs right across Australia and that's what I'll continue to do.

Kieran Gilbert: Finally, I want to ask you about Kim Carr. He's expressed concern about the move to cut payments for single parents. On both the merits of his case and the politics of another minister or outgoing minister, former minister, criticising the Government. What do you make of this opinion piece today in The Australian?

Tanya Plibersek: Well, I think it's very clear that the best thing that we can do to help sole parent families is get those parents into the workforce. It's good for the parents, it's good not just for the income but for the social contact you have through work. It's also great for kids to see mum or dad working. We have unfortunately too many children growing up in Australia in jobless families. So the best thing we can do is help them get a job and we've helped many, many hundreds of thousands of people into the workforce. In fact, we're reaching - we're over 900,000 jobs created since coming to Government through Jobs Services Australia.

Many of those jobs have gone to people who've been previously out of the workforce. that's the best thing we can do for those people for their kids and for our economy.

Kieran Gilbert: Tanya Plibersek, appreciate your time. Thanks for that.