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

It is one of those areas that I know the Senator for the ACT has an interest in. I know he prefaces all his remarks to the constituents, but when he was in government he participated in ripping $1 billion out of the health and hospitals system. We have said time and time again that we have been in government for 18 months and we have put our money where our mouth is. Those opposite did not do that. When you look at emergency department funding, the Rudd government will deliver $750 billion to state and territory emergency departments. The ACT received $10 million of that. That is $10 million that was not there and that is now being provided for elective surgery. There is also stage 2 of the program to ensure the ACT can also get $6.6 million for capital works at Canberra and Calvary hospitals, because it is not going to be a system that is fixed overnight after the mess the Liberals left it in. We will need to ensure that we provide both the capital funding— (Time expired)