Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Don’t worry, Member for Dobell, I will be on health; there is no doubt about that. It is the easiest story to pick apart that you could imagine. So desperate was the Prime Minister to try and have something to take to the election that he had to junk his commitment to give the Auditor-General a role in government advertising at the end of March so that he could have an advertising program on—guess which subject—health. It is an advertising program that no longer has to go through the Auditor-General. It is an advertising program he promised he would never do when he was in opposition.

The Prime Minister, when he was in opposition, said, ‘Why don’t we have a system whereby a ban is placed on publicly funded government advertising unless agreed between the leader of the government and the Leader of the Opposition for three months prior to an election?’ It is now three months before an election and what did we see on the weekend? The most political government advertising we have seen in this place in a generation. It is the most outrageous abuse of government money, and it was all done after they cut the Auditor-General out of the process. The government stood on their high horse before the last election and now just before this election they dump the promise. It is just so typical of this government. You cannot trust what they say before an election because it will all change after the election. Whether it is the greatest moral challenge of our time or an absolute commitment on government advertising, you cannot trust them. You cannot trust them when it comes to health.

You would not put these blokes in charge of the $100 billion health system after you have seen what they did with the memorial school halls program and the pink batts insulation program. They cannot implement a program. You would not trust them with the $100 billion health system because they do not have the ability to implement a program. What they do have is an ability to run an election campaign, and that is all this is about. The health policy is a cover for an election campaign policy. It is one of those things that will be dumped after the election, like ‘the greatest moral challenge of all time’ was dumped after the last election, like the government advertising fraudulent claim was dumped just before this budget so that they could run ad after ad after ad leading to this election.

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