PETER DUTTON: It’s pretty apparent that as we go towards this break that basically when it comes to wasting billions of dollars and taking our country nowhere, Julia Gillard is just Kevin Rudd dressed up in a pants suit.
This is not a government that is taking our country forward, they just don’t know what they’re doing, they can’t implement plans, they just can’t get the detail right and they are wasting taxpayers’ money at a time when people are having to tighten their belts in the run-up to Christmas. And so Australian families when they are trying to purchase Christmas presents now, when they get their bills for their credit cards in January will look at this government that has wasted enormous amounts of money and they won’t forgive them for that.
Now I wanted to say in relation to mental health that the motion which was to come on last week is due to come on today, so unless Julia Gillard has some clever stunt up her sleeve we will see the mental health motion pass the Lower House today. All the independents have indicated that they will support the Coalition’s mental health motion.
The Greens and Labor say that they will oppose the motion, but I’m confident that with the support of the Independents we will get passage through the Lower House and of course it’s already passed through the Senate and I think that says to the government that the Australian people want action on mental health and the Gillard Government certainly is not delivering that at the moment.
I want to make special mention this morning to Bob Katter who has really championed the cause in rural and country areas. Bob Katter has been a great advocate for extra mental health services and under our plan his sort of region would be a great beneficiary because the headspace sites work really well not just in metropolitan, but rural and regional areas as well.
JOURNALIST: Peter Julia Gillard says that mental health will be one of her priorities this term, what‘s your response to that?
PETER DUTTON: Remember when Kevin Rudd said that he’d ‘fix’ hospitals back in 2007. Remember when Julia Gillard raced around in a white doctor’s coat just like Kevin Rudd did, she’s been doing that now for the last five or six months, nothing’s happened in relation to health and I promise you this, when you look back over these so-called reforms all you will see is a great big extra bureaucracy in health, no extra Emergency Departments will open up, this is a government that has created 11 beds over the course of the last financial year and this is just a government that hasn’t got mental health as a priority. Thank you.
Media contact: John Wiseman – (02) 6277 4884 or 0429 983 618