Page 1094 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 5 April 2016
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MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hinder.
MR HINDER: Chief Minister, what funding changes were agreed at COAG to help deliver health services for Canberrans?
MR BARR: Under the agreement reached at COAG Canberra’s hospitals will receive around an additional $50 million in commonwealth funding over the next three years. Of course, this is welcome and it will help to keep our hospitals delivering the care that Canberrans deserve. But let us be clear that it falls far short of the $600 million over 10 years that was ripped out of the system by the Abbott-Hockey budget of 2013. So it has taken almost two years of effort to make the federal Liberal government understand what the effects of their cuts would be; as the head of the AMA labelled it, “an economic and healthcare disaster”.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! You have got a chance to ask questions, Mr Hanson.
MR BARR: To remind those opposite of the effect of the original cuts on the ACT, it would have meant the loss of funding equivalent to 58,000 elective surgery procedures. So by 2026 that funding, had it been provided and had the commonwealth honoured their agreements, would have employed another 1,200 nurses and provided 80 intensive care unit beds or 340 general inpatient beds to the territory. That is the scale of the cuts that the Liberal government at a federal level has provided.
We will get a small proportion of those services back, and for a shorter time. It is a bandaid solution but it is undoubtedly an improvement. So we can say that Prime Minister Turnbull is marginally better than Prime Minister Abbott. We can say that; I know those on the opposite side do not agree with that proposition. They are for Abbott. We will continue to push for the restoration of federal funding and we will continue to advocate for our health system. There is only one party in this city that supports the proper funding of public hospitals, and that is the Labor Party.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: Chief Minister, do you have a guarantee from the federal Labor Party—from Bill Shorten, the opposition leader—that he will now fully fund the health and education promises? Yes or no?
MR BARR: Yes, I have a guarantee from the Leader of the Opposition in relation to education funding. That is a stated policy announcement. The Leader of the Opposition at the federal level has committed to fully fund the Gonski education reforms and I commend him for that. In relation to health, the Leader of the Opposition federally has made a public statement that he will in fact do better than Malcolm Turnbull in relation to health funding. We look forward to a better offer—
Mr Hanson: You’re a hollow man.
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