Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The COAG health package has provided significant money to provide health and hospitals support. That is perhaps the difficulty that Senator Payne has in asking this question about a package that is designed as a stimulus to the economy and what we are doing as a package in the health area, which is unrelated. Providing that support is what we are going to do and we are doing. As a result of last November’s historic COAG meeting, the Commonwealth government, in implementing lasting reform to improve the Australian healthcare system, agreed to provide $64.4 billion over five years. That is the appropriate place for the provision of funding, through the COAG process, to assist hospitals right across Australia. That package includes several national partnerships to strengthen our hospitals and health— (Time expired)