EO&E...........................................................................................................................................

 

 

It’s terrific to be here in Melbourne as part of my mini-campaign. It’s great to be here in Victoria. This is the 84th visit that I’ve made to Victoria since becoming Opposition Leader. That averages out at about a visit a fortnight. It’s particularly good to be here at this iconic national institution, the Children’s Hospital here in Melbourne. This is a fabulous hospital. I want to thank the CEO, Professor Christine Kilpatrick for making myself, Frances and the Shadow Minister Peter Dutton so welcome. I want to thank the Chairman Rob Knowles.

 

This is obviously a very important national centre of excellence. There are youngsters who come to this hospital from right around Australia, particularly for cardiac procedures. It is the number one children’s hospital in Victoria and sick kids from all over this state routinely come here.

 

Tragically, this hospital has just been inflicted with a $3.6 million budget cut by the Gillard Government. I deeply regret this action of the Gillard Government. If the Gillard Government was a better manager of money, it wouldn’t have had to do this. As far as the Coalition is concerned, yes, by all means minimise the bureaucracy but maximise frontline patient services and that’s the problem with what the Gillard Government has done here.

 

Obviously, this mini-campaign is all about the Coalition’s positive plans for a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure Australia and the very first element of our plan for a stronger economy is repealing the carbon tax. This is a tax which is adding to Australian workers’ job insecurity. It’s a tax which is making every Australian family’s cost of living pressures worse. We learn today that businesses have faced on average a 15 per cent increase in their power prices because of the carbon tax. That’s up, well up, on the ten per cent increase which the Government is prepared to concede and it just goes to show that if you want to get this economy going again, if you want to make people’s jobs more secure and families’ cost of living lower, get rid of the carbon tax. That will be the first thing that an incoming Coalition government does. That is an important part of our positive plan.

 

But really I do want to say thank you to everyone here at the children’s hospital. As a parent I know what it is like to be with your kids in children’s hospitals. I know the importance of the services a hospital like this delivers. I’m so proud to be with my beautiful daughter Frances this morning. Frances has seen the inside of the kids hospital at Westmead and I might just ask her to say a few words.

 

 

I’m really happy to be down here with Dad in Melbourne for the mini-campaign. As always, my sisters and I love coming to support and we especially love Melbourne. I’m really grateful to be able to come inside the hospital today. I feel really inspired by such a beautifully designed hospital as well as getting an insight into some of the great stuff that they’re doing.

 

 

Ok. Dutts?

 

 

Thanks Tony. Firstly, thank you very much to the doctors, the staff and management at this amazing facility. We live in a wonderful country and we have amazing tertiary hospital facilities. It is inspiring when you talk to the doctors and nurses, the work that they are able to do on a daily basis, particularly helping families who are going through incredibly tough periods with sick children, but those doctors and nurses are frustrated by a bad government that cuts money from the services that they want to deliver.

 

It’s going to make it harder because of the cuts implemented by the Gillard Government for this hospital to see sick children. It is going to make it harder for hospitals around the country who are suffering because of the $1.6 billion cut by the Gillard Government from those wonderful hospitals. We want to see more money spent on frontline services. We don’t want to see the new bureaucracies, 12 of which have been created by the Gillard Government, added to. We want to see more money going to frontline services so that the doctors and nurses across our great country can make a positive impact and a greater impact on sick, not just children, but elderly Australians as well. The Coalition is absolutely determined to make sure that we can help those doctors and nurses deliver the services that Australians deserve in the 21st Century. I am very pleased to be back here at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne for my second visit. I am very, very grateful of the doctors and nurses and patients who have seen us today.

 

 

Mr Abbott, would you restore those cuts as an absolute priority?

 

 

Look at the record that I had when I was the Health Minister. I very substantially increased hospital funding. There was a 16 per cent real increase in hospital funding when I was the Health Minister and, as I said, if you ever do need to make savings, economise with the bureaucracy, never economise with frontline health services.

 

 

In today’s Financial Review there is a poll that says that Labor would lose up to 18 seats in the next election. The figures are bad for Labor but how much credit can the Coalition really take for the Government’s bad position?

  

 

I have made it my consistent practise not to run a commentary on the polls. The fact is opinion polls will go up and down between now and polling day.

 

Tony Abbott, did your party fund the poll published in The Financial Review this morning?

 

 

Not to my knowledge, no.

 

 

Are you feeling confident about the latest poll results?

 

 

Look, I’m very enthusiastic about the reception that my team and I have been getting as part of our mini-campaign. The feeling on the street is very positive towards the Coalition because Australians know that we are a great country and a great people who want a better government. Australians are looking to the Coalition to provide them with a better government. I am confident that is precisely what we can do.

 

 

Exactly when will the Coalition deliver its first budget surplus when elected?

 

We believe based on what are still the only published figures that this government has put out that we can deliver a surplus in each and every year of the first term of a Coalition government, but I do call on the Government, which ran away from its surplus commitment – the “no ifs no buts, come hell or high water” surplus commitment that they made on 200 and more separate occasions; they walked away from that, just before Christmas, hoping that it would all be lost in the Christmas rush, well, it hasn’t been lost – and they need to publish their figures.

 

Are you going to publish your plans to achieve those budget surpluses?

 

 

Well, we’re in Opposition. We don’t have access to the Treasury figures. Give us the Treasury figures, then we’ll be in a position to produce ours.

 

How will your surplus pledge affect the public service?

 

 

Look, we’ve said that we don’t believe that it is necessary for good government to have some 20,000 more public servants in Canberra than there were at the end of 2007. We think that there can be, through natural attrition, some reduction in the size of the Commonwealth public service. We’ve always been upfront about that. That’s a significant part of our plan for a stronger economy.

 

 

Do you agree with Campbell Newman that a flood levy may have to be reintroduced to rebuild Queensland?

 

 

This obviously came up a couple of years ago and in the midst of an emergency which is still unfolding I don’t propose to get into the detail about what our specific attitude might be, but our instincts and our values are the same now as they were two years ago, and I do make the general point that Australia is a land of droughts and flooding rains and the ordinary business of government should include being able to cope with the sorts of natural disaster which we regularly experience in this country.

 

 

Do you think climate change has played any role in those?

 

 

Droughts, fires, floods have been a part of this country’s experience since records were kept.

 

Now, I think that climate change is real and humanity does make a contribution and we must have a strong and effective policy to deal with it, but I don’t think anyone could credibly say that this kind of thing has only happened since man made carbon dioxide increases started.

 

 

What do you think of Tim Mathieson making light of prostate checks?

 

 

Look, after everything the Prime Minister has said on these sorts of subjects, I do think that she does have to deal with this personally and I’d expect her to say something about this today.

 

Thank you.

 

[ends]