Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Parkes for his question. I would draw his attention to one core fact and that is that, under the Australian Health Care agreement signed by the Minister for Health and Ageing at the end of last year, we increased the allocation for health and hospitals by 50 per cent, against that which we inherited from the previous government. Secondly, I say in response to the honourable member’s question that it stands in stark contrast to the $1 billion that he and his government pulled out of the public hospital system of Australia. To put that into context, what we inherited in an Australian healthcare agreement was $42 billion—

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