Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why is the Prime Minister cutting $2.9 million from the Caboolture Hospital, while giving $17 billion to the big banks?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll be calling on the minister in a moment. While we welcome the honourable member back from her absence, the great lie that the government is cutting funding from Caboolture Hospital is one that the Minister for Health will now comprehensively refute, as we have done every day that Labor have uttered it.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to back up what the Prime Minister says. What we saw in Queensland during that campaign from the ALP was a tissue of lies, an absolute farrago of dishonesty. How do we know this? In the metro north area, which includes the Caboolture Hospital, what did Queensland Labor do in 2016-17? They cut funding to their own area, to their own hospitals, by $20 million. These are not our figures; these are their figures. It was a cut by Queensland Labor about which the Leader of the Opposition was palpably silent, about which he said nothing and about which he put them in witness protection. What we saw was a $20 million cut from Queensland Labor. They're the facts. What did we do on our side in that period? There was a $120 million increase in federal funding to the metro north area: minus 20, Queensland Labor; plus 120, the federal coalition government. Those are the facts, based on not just our figures but the Queensland government's figures and those of the independent assessors in this space. So, whilst we've gone up, they have reduced funding by $20 million.

What does that mean? That means that Queensland is providing less money for beds in Caboolture Hospital, less money for services in Caboolture Hospital and less money for other treatments in Caboolture Hospital. At the same time, what we have just done is guarantee $11 million for increased drug and alcohol funding in Caboolture, where there is an issue in relation to methamphetamines and the challenge on the streets which was raised by so many people. So we're increasing funding, Queensland Labor is decreasing funding and, when it really counts, federal Labor hid the fact that their own people in their own state are taking money away from their own hospitals.