After two years of no progress on the state of public hospitals and with only one GP super clinic established, Kevin Rudd and Nicola Roxon have today opened a cancer centre with no staff and no patients.

Kevin Rudd’s opening of the Alan Walker Cancer Care Centre in Darwin today bears an uncanny resemblance to St Edward’s Hospital in the seventies TV show 'Yes Minister'.  Like the non-existent St Edwards, the Darwin Cancer Centre has no patients.  Unlike St Edwards, this affects real people, desperately in need of treatment. 

Not one single patient.  At a cost of $19 million, it defies belief that this centre has been established, yet now lies empty. 

Not only did it take 7 years to actually pour the foundation, but now we learn that once completed, there are no patients.  Perhaps the Rudd Labor Government shares Sir Humphrey’s view, that patients would “just be in the way.” 

But a lack of patients isn’t the only problem.  There are significant staffing concerns, with plans to rotate staff through Darwin from Adelaide. 

Just like the GP Super Clinics and management of public hospitals this is a prime example of Kevin Rudd over-promising and under-delivering.  Once again proof of his all talk, no action approach to politics. 

  Australians are fed up with Kevin’s placebo approach to healthcare and deserve better.