Tony Abbott = Real Action on Rural Health and Regional Health

16/08/10

Julia Gillard = Second Class Services

Julia Gillard’s promise to provide rebates for online medical consultations demonstrates that medical services can be delivered without the need for a $43 billion nationalised broadband network.

The Prime Minister committed to provide Medicare rebates for online medical consultations via video conferencing from 1 July 2011 and a commitment to extend GP After Hours services to internet users by 1 July 2012.

But the National Broadband Network (NBN) will not be anywhere near completion by July 2011 or 1 July 2012. The vast majority of regional centres will not have access to the NBN by July 2012.

If Labor was serious about assisting regional Australians to have greater access to health services it would not have closed or downgraded services at hundreds of our local hospitals.

It is ironic that on the day around 2,500 people turned out in Gulgong to protest the closure of the Gulgong Hospital due to the ineptitude of the NSW State and Federal Labor Governments, Julie Gillard was promising to improve access to health services for people in rural and regional Australia. And much of remote Australia will never get the NBN but instead, receive satellite services.

The Prime Minister’s commitment to provide rebates for medical consultations via video conferencing depends on existing telecommunications infrastructure and technology rather than the Labor’s $43 billion NBN white elephant.

Today’s announcement from the Prime Minister clearly shows that the NBN will unnecessarily cost taxpayers tens of billions when the very services the NBN are supposed to provide can already be delivered.

The Prime Minister cannot have it both ways.

Either the NBN is an unnecessary waste of taxpayers’ dollars or today’s commitment to provide Medicare rebates for online medical consultations via video conferencing is a hollow promise that cannot be delivered because of inadequacies with existing telecommunications infrastructure and services.

Under the Coalition, we will support continuing use of technology but it will not be a substitute for real doctors and real nurses. We will deliver the following workforce increases to regional and rural Australia:

- Double the number of Medical Rural Bonded Scholarships

- 100 new regional Nurse Practitioner scholarships

- A new $10,000 annual bonus for Nurse Practitioners who practice in regional towns with no resident medical practitioner, and

- A new pilot scheme for rural and regional dentists.

Julia Gillard must come clean with the Australian people. She should explain why taxpayers should pay a huge sum for a nationalised broadband network when vital online services such as medical consultations can already be delivered through existing telecommunications infrastructure and technology.

And she must deliver real nurses, real doctors and real dentists to the people of rural and regional Australia.