Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my home town of Launceston we have one of the best regional hospitals in the country. I know because I was on the board of Tasmanian Health Organisation—North, which is responsible for the governance of the Launceston General Hospital. It has a proud history of innovation and care. Workers at the LGH are to be commended on the outstanding work they do despite cuts to hospital funding. Tasmanians remember all too well the Liberal promises that there would be no cuts to hospitals in 2013. What did we get? Four years of Prime Minister Abbott's and then Prime Minister Turnbull's cuts and neglect, and now Tasmania's public hospitals are in crisis.

The Liberals are worse than ignorant as to their role in a system in crisis. They even deny the fact that there are health cuts, just as we've heard today. Instead they rely upon the assertion they are delivering more funding than in years past. With growing presentations and acuity on one hand, increases in healthcare inflation outpacing other cost increases and Commonwealth funding failing to keep pace, it is no wonder that the Launceston General Hospital is not able to keep up with demand. Under the Liberals, the cuts to our hospitals are putting those workers under pressure and the lives of Tasmanians at risk. The stories, the personal stories, that I hear almost daily speak of the stresses placed upon our emergency department and hospital wards. The story late last year of a patient left waiting outside the LGH for treatment and constant stories of ambulance ramping tell me that the cuts to health this government has overseen need to be seriously addressed now. Instead, this government's budget prioritises tax cuts to big business ahead of the health of the Australian people.

The Prime Minister and his Liberal government are cutting $715 million from 2017 to 2020, including $1.95 million from the LGH in my electorate of Bass, equivalent to the cost of performing 542 cataract surgeries or 75 knee replacements. It's a big cut, enough to fund 4,745 outpatient appointments or 2,928 emergency department visits. From the North West Regional Hospital in Braddon, he is taking $730,000. This would be a complete disaster for the health of northern Tasmanians. Between the next election and 2025, the Prime Minister wants to cut $2.8 billion from Australia's public hospitals.

Labor, by contrast, has a proud record on public hospital funding. The last Labor government signed a historic national health reform agreement with the states and territories in 2011. The aim was to end the blame game and give public hospitals long-term budget certainty by funding an equal share of efficient growth in hospital costs. This is where the Liberal lies on increases in health funding come unstuck. They tore up that agreement. Now the federal government is delivering less each year of the total cost of running our hospitals, including the LGH and the North West Regional Hospital.

As Labor is not giving businesses an $80 billion tax cut, Labor can afford to reverse the Turnbull government's cuts to hospitals from 2019 to 2025 and create a $2.8 billion better hospital fund, a practical step to address these daily pressures. Labor has already committed to a $30 million investment to slash Tasmania's elective surgery backlog. This record investment will reduce emergency department and elective surgery waiting times. This is something that only a re-elected Justine Keay and I can promise our constituents in Braddon and Bass. Justine Keay and I know from our experience that our hardworking and dedicated health professionals—our medical specialists, surgeons, nurses and allied health workers and all the support staff—will continue to work above and beyond the call of duty to look after the patients that present to hospitals in the electorates of Bass and Braddon. However, it is the present Liberal state and federal governments that are responsible for the health crisis—the backlog in elective surgery and increases in wait times in our emergency departments, the front line of the crisis. Try telling someone, when they are waiting for over 30 months to get an appointment to see a specialist even before they are investigated for surgery, that the Liberals are doing a good job. The freeze on the Medicare rebate has meant that many people elect not to see a GP at the right time. This government is responsible for those cuts. (Time expired)

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