Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

When it comes to health, not only does the budget lock in another billion dollars of new savings to Medicare; it also seeks to lock in the Prime Minister's cuts to our public hospitals for another seven years. The minister and the government are desperately trying to deny that there are cuts here, so I want to take the opportunity to take you through some of the facts.

When we were in government we signed the National Health Reform Agreement, an historic agreement that ended the blame game when it came to the Commonwealth and the states in terms of hospital funding. That agreement was signed back in 2011. Under that agreement the Commonwealth committed to fund an equal share of efficient growth in hospital costs, ending that blame game and giving public hospitals long-term certainty. Ahead of the 2013 election, the Liberals promised they would 'support the transition to the Commonwealth providing 50 per cent growth in funding'. It's worth repeating the coalition's own so-called policy to support Australia's health system—a document I noted, when I first waved it around, the minister at the table had appeared not to have actually read. That policy promised that the government would fund 50 per cent of hospital growth. But the government has simply broken that promise. It is only funding 45 per cent of efficient growth, with a new 6.5 per cent cap on Commonwealth growth. The independent Parliamentary Budget Office says that the difference between 50 per cent and 45 per cent is $715 million, from 2017 to 2020, cut from the public hospital system. That cut is shared across every hospital in the country. It includes a cut of $2.9 million to Caboolture Hospital, a cut of a million dollars to the North West Regional Hospital and a cut of $8.1 million to Rosebud Hospital and Peninsula Health in the minister's own electorate. It goes on and on across the country.

The Australian Medical Association's 2018 Public Hospital Report Card shows that these cuts are hurting hospitals today—every doctor, every nurse, every patient. It reveals that bed ratios for older Australians continue to fall and are now at their lowest level on record. Emergency department waiting times have worsened, with up to half of urgent patients not being seen within clinically recommended times. Elective surgery waiting times remain too long, with most jurisdictions failing to treat most urgent patients within the recommended 90 days. The AMA highlights that this substandard performance is a direct result of inadequate funding. They say:

… public hospitals continue to face a funding crisis—one that is rapidly eroding their capacity to provide essential services …

The AMA has been critical of the formula that the government is using for its funding and for its cuts.

In this budget the government is locking those cuts in for another seven years. Between the next election and 2025, the budget would mean a further $2.8 billion being cut from Australia's public hospitals. Australians know that Labor is right, but, of course, they don't just need to listen to Labor on this issue. The AMA says:

The current funding formula will doom our public hospitals to fail, and patients will suffer as a result.

This is the minister's record funding for public hospitals, and the legacy he is prepared to inflict on public hospitals and public patients across the country. Put simply, contrary to the minister's claims of record funding, the independent experts say that the government's funding formula is not keeping up with demand. Doing better than the member for Warringah in the 2014 budget is not something to be proud of.

So, in the meantime, when we see that funding is going to continue to be cut from our public hospitals, I ask: will the minister honour his government's commitment to fund 50 per cent of growth in the efficient price of hospital funding? It is a commitment that you went to the election in 2013 saying that you were going to deliver. Will you deliver your own election promises? If not, can the minister finally admit, as his department has already been willing to admit, that 45 per cent is less than 50 per cent and that this cut is hurting every hospital, every patient, every doctor, every nurse and everybody in the country?

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