Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

Areas such as health care, disability services and housing are funded by this government under national SPPs. The funding under those arrangements is ongoing and indexed each year. I would remind those opposite that this government is doubling Commonwealth funding, to around $7.6 billion over 6½ years, for more and better specialist disability services under the National Disability Agreement—things that were never provided under the Howard government in the long years that they were in office. They were not funded then; they were funded by a Labor government. So when those opposite come in here and talk about impacts on services—disability services, health care and the like—they ought to be honest about two things: first, that they never funded these things in government; and, second, that they would impose higher costs— (Time expired)