Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

In question time today and on numerous previous occasions, members opposite have claimed that I—and I am quoting more or less what they say—‘ripped a billion dollars out of hospital funding’. I seek to make two points. First of all, rather trivially, I was not the relevant minister at the time of the 2003 budget. Secondly, and more importantly, I am now reading from page 179 of Budget Paper No. 2 of 2003-04, which states:

The funding for 2003-04 to 2007-08—

this is the health care agreement, public hospital funding—

represents an increase of $10 billion over the last agreements.

This demonstrates that the claims repeatedly made opposite are simply not true. They are lies.

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