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

The Liberals have cut $2.9 million from Caboolture Hospital. That is a fact. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Health somehow have the gall and temerity to stand up in this place and in the media and accuse Labor of lying about health funding. I'm sure they'll continue to do it every single day between now and the 28 July by-election. They are so desperate to avoid being exposed for who they really are—neoliberal crusaders hell-bent on cutting and privatising the services that Australians rely on and care about. They do all they can so that they can give the top end of town a tax cut.

Labor won't rest until every single voter in Longman knows the truth. This government has cut $2.9 million from their hospital. Here are the facts. The Liberals promised to fund 50 per cent of the efficient price growth in our nation's hospitals. They did that in their own policy document. They lied. They broke that promise the first chance they got—literally within their first budget. The member for Warringah slashed $57 billion from public hospitals all across the nation just a few short months after promising that he would make no cuts whatsoever to health. He slashed and burned health funding. The Prime Minister reversed some of those cuts, but not all of them. He agreed to fund 45 per cent of the efficient price growth—it was better than Abbott but still well short of their promise.

In Caboolture the difference between 50 per cent and 45 per cent over the 2017-20 agreement is $2.9 million. It's a simple formula. There's nothing tricky about it. The Liberals are delivering $2.9 million less than they promised the Australian people they would, and that's $2.9 million less than would have been delivered under Labor's National Health Reform Agreement—a landmark agreement that the Liberals just could not wait to tear up. So, yes, we're telling the people of Longman about this cut. They have a right to know what this government is up to and how this government is hurting them, even if it does frustrate and anger this arrogant and out-of-touch Prime Minister to be exposed.

The $2.9 million cut to Caboolture Hospital is the equivalent of 4,300 emergency department visits, more than 800 cataract extractions or 480 births. These are real cuts that will have an impact on the capacity of the hospital to meet future demands in the region. And that $2.9 million cut over the three years of the government's current agreement, which runs from 2017 to 2020, is $715 million nationwide.

Now, they've been trying to lock in an even bigger cut from 2020 to 2025 by refusing to change their inadequate funding formula. This would result in a $2.8 billion cut nationwide, including $650 million from Queensland alone. No wonder the Queensland government are refusing to sign up to their agreement. They know this deal is woefully inadequate. We congratulate the Queensland government for holding out and demanding a better deal for Queenslanders and the people of Longman, even though it is denying some budget certainty for the Queensland government.

The Liberals claim there is no cut, because the government funding is increasing year on year. Of course it is. Funding for hospitals always increases with population and health inflation and, because it's an activity based funding system, when services and activities are carried out. If we take population alone, there will be five million more people living in Australia in 2025 than there were in 2015, the year the government uses as the benchmark for its counting. But even on that basis the government is falling short, with funding actually declining on a per capita basis. It doesn't change the fact that it's delivering less than it promised, less than Labor's agreement would have delivered and less than a Shorten Labor government actually will deliver.

Under Labor's Better Hospitals Fund, Caboolture Hospital will benefit from much better funding. That means more beds and shorter emergency department and elective surgery waiting times. The government is peddling other lies and furphies in Longman and misleading claims across the country. When the government says its funding is increasing much faster than the Queensland government funding, there is a simple reason for that. The government is calculating it off the low base of the Abbott government's rock-bottom offering. That's where it is calculating it from.

Again, here are the facts. The National Health Funding Pool report on the Metro North Hospital and Health Service for 2016-17 shows that the Queensland government provided $356 million more to Metro North hospitals than the Commonwealth last financial year—more funding from the Queensland government than the Commonwealth. And the same data from July 2017 to January 2018 shows that the Queensland government provided $310 million more to Metro North hospitals in the first half of this year alone—more funding from the Queensland government than the Commonwealth funding.

This week the government also sought to claim that Labor was lying about a lack of chemotherapy services for Caboolture Hospital. There are no chemotherapy services at Caboolture Hospital. The hospital's own website, in fact, actually confirms that—websites are something the minister likes to check, I heard, from Wikipedia. But, anyway, there you go. People have to travel to Redcliffe Hospital or to another hospital in Brisbane to get access to those services.

We think that is unacceptable for the people of Longman. That's why we have promised to invest $10 million to establish a chemotherapy treatment service at Caboolture Hospital. This investment will see 360 patients receiving around 3,700 treatments every single year. At the moment, people have to travel significant distances to access critical chemotherapy treatment and bypass the Caboolture Hospital because the service isn't available. For a cancer patient living on Bribie Island who needs chemotherapy, this will cut their travel time by half.

We believe it's important that we make these investments now because this is a fast-growing region, and there is going to be a lot of pressure on local health services into the years ahead. It is a region the government have woefully neglected. For example, this is an area that desperately needs a new MRI licence so people can get affordable access to life-saving medical scans without having to travel long distances, but the government have ignored their pleas. While Labor delivered 238 Medicare-subsidised MRI licences when we were last in office, the Liberals have just delivered—I know you'd think, 'We did 238; maybe they might have done half of that.' How many have they delivered? Just five in five years. The latest, of course, is in Kalgoorlie, as part of a dodgy deal with One Nation to win Senate votes for their inadequate income tax cuts. If only Queensland had a One Nation senator who could extract a similar deal with Caboolture! Oh, wait—apparently Senator Hanson isn't capable of making the same deal as her WA colleague for the people of Longman.

The Liberals have also ignored the people of Bribie Island, who desperately need better access to emergency care. At the moment, the people of Bribie Island have to travel to Caboolture's overstretched emergency department. Almost 10 per cent of the 52,000 people who presented at the Caboolture ED last year were from Bribie Island, but the Liberals have done absolutely nothing for them.

The Liberals also have a very shocking record when it comes to north-west Tasmania. They've cut funding and services relentlessly, leaving the people of Devonport and Burnie and the rest of the region worse off. Over 6,000 Tasmanians are waiting for critical elective surgery under the Liberals' surgery backlog, with one in 10 waiting almost a year. These are patients waiting for vital procedures such as knee and hip replacements, cataract surgeries and hysterectomies. One in four Tasmanians currently wait outside the clinically recommended time. This is the worst in the country. That is why Labor has committed to a $30 billion investment to slash Tasmania's elective surgery backlog. This will enable 3,000 extra elective surgery procedures—equivalent to half the waiting list.

Then there are the government's cuts to TAZREACH, a vital service that gives Tasmanians access to better services. It provides access to services that otherwise are not available in that community. I'm proud that Labor has restored that funding, $4.5 million, that the Liberals have failed to match.

When it comes to health, all this government can do is cut. It's cut hospitals, it's cut prevention, it's cut dental care and it continues to slash Medicare every single day. That is what the Liberals do. The choice at the next election, and the choice at the by-elections, particularly in Longman and Braddon—these critical elections—could not be clearer: more savage cuts under the Liberals, or a record investment under Labor and a record investment in Longman and Braddon

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