Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We might have a new Prime Minister but the policies are still the same. What we have before us is still the $80 billion in cuts to health and education. What does that mean for our schools and hospitals in Bendigo? It means $34 million being cut from Bendigo Hospital. We are about to get a brand-new hospital; it will be opened later this year or early next year. But we are worried it will not have the funding it needs to open its doors because this government is not paying its fair share. We have had $200 million cut from Bendigo schools. We have some small schools in the Bendigo electorate. We have a number of schools that are in low-SES areas. We have a number of schools with students with a disability that are not receiving the funding that they need.

What this government did when they were elected was to cut that funding. We have a new Prime Minister and we have half a new frontbench—we do not quite know what is happening with the other frontbench. None of them has said they are going to put that money back. This is a Prime Minister that says one thing and does another. This government is hiding from the Australian people and not doing what they are asking, which is that they put back the money that they cut. Our schools and hospitals, our states, need a federal government that will partner with them to fund our schools and hospitals properly. It is time that this government got real, got serious and put the $80 billion back.