Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

This year's budget in Queensland and Premier Campbell Newman and the LNP state government are doing nothing to support jobs and provide better services for Queensland families and families in the electorate of Blair. Campbell Newman has simply cut too hard, too fast, with savage cuts to jobs and frontline services, particularly in health and education, and has devastated business confidence. In fact, Campbell Newman has let a child's state of origin affect their educational funding and health outcomes. While New South Wales schools will benefit by $1.6 billion over the next six years, $2.2 billion extra is on the table for Queensland schools over the next six years and Campbell Newman should sign up to the Gonski reforms. Instead, he is putting the Liberal Party interests ahead of the kids of Queensland. He has no credibility, given the savage cuts he has inflicted on the educational sector, including closure of state schools in Queensland. He should be talking constructively with this government to make sure that every child in Queensland has a better life.

Queensland Treasurer Tim Nicholls failed to mention that his budget centrepiece, in the fine print, the Great teachers = Great results initiative, relies on Commonwealth government funding. When it comes to health, the coalition government in Queensland is devastating front-line health services to all Queenslanders. Campbell Newman is slashing about 70,000 outpatient services, such as palliative care, pain management and rehabilitation, as a result of this budget. These vicious cuts come on top of the budget papers and reveal that health funding falls short in Queensland by the $137 million required to keep up with the growth in services that Queenslanders need. Investment in Queensland Health is not even keeping up with population growth or health cost increases.

Around 70,000 specialist and allied health outpatient services, such as palliative care and pain management, will be lost under Campbell Newman. To maintain the current level of services, he would have to include an extra $241 million—that is, 6.3 per cent in the state budget—for acute care services. Instead, he is providing an extra 2.7 per cent less than health inflation. The shortfall is the equivalent of 6,570 hip operations or 6,980 knee operations. This shortfall means that Queenslanders will have to wait longer for surgery. In fact, in 2012, Queensland was the only state not to have met its 2010 baseline targets for reducing the number of elective surgery outpatients who have waited the longest. This means that patients will have to wait longer this year than in 2010.

The Campbell Newman government has cut $3 billion from its first budget, continued that and sacked over 4,140 health service operators, particularly doctors and nurses providing front-line services. This has a negative impact on all of Queensland and on Queensland patients. (Time expired)

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