Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

is a sneaky attempt to game the system and step up and say, 'We actually want different calculations for our state than for every other state.' So the way the National Health Funding Pool is distributed is based, as members know, on activity based funding and the national efficient price. What Victoria has done is artificially deflate the base of that funding formula so that the difference between that and the rate of funding that the Commonwealth notionally provides from this hospital funding pool is higher than it should be.

There are checks and balances here. I reassure the member for Indi that, if the argument that the Victorian Labor Party was putting is correct, every other state, particularly the Labor states around the table, would be stepping up and saying: 'What about us? We demand the same treatment.' In fact, they are not. The Victorian minister is friendless around the COAG table. The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Jagajaga and the member for Isaacs as senior cabinet ministers in the opposition should correct the Victorian health minister—

See this speech in context