Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Normally, if there were a government document which flagged removing $70 billion out of public hospitals over four years, and which flagged the Commonwealth withdrawing from any funding of public hospitals in Australia, most people would not see it as a credible document. Most people would say it had no chance of being implemented. The trouble is that, with this government, it has every chance of being implemented, because this government's track record when it comes to funding hospitals and schools is nothing short of appalling. This is the government that has already scrapped $80 billion worth of funding from health and education over the next decade. In health alone, we have seen the government try to introduce a GP tax and try to cut $57 billion out of public hospitals, and they are implementing those cuts as we speak, and we know they have no credibility. We know that they want to cut funding to health and education. We see the Prime Minister day after day at the dispatch box, even denying the fact that the cuts exist when his own budget papers show they do. When the Treasurer of New South Wales, his Liberal colleague, bells the cat and says the cuts are unsustainable, he says she is wrong, apparently—the Liberal Treasurer of New South Wales.

We saw yesterday a report indicating means-testing of access to public education. Again, normally you would say that has no chance of being implemented, but with this government it has every chance of being implemented, because we know this government wants to have price signals in health and education. It does not believe in universal health care or universal education.