Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Furner for his second supplementary question, because he has identified that there are risks. Of course, there is no doubt that the biggest risk posed to longstanding health and hospital reform is those on the other side: the opposition—the Liberals and the Nationals. I have outlined the tremendous amount of investment that the Gillard Labor government is bringing to regional and rural Australia. This is in contrast to the record of Mr Tony Abbott, whose team only cut, cut, cut health and hospital funding. Mr Abbott as health minister cut $1 billion from the health budget and now Mr Sloppy Joe Hockey has got to find another $70 billion in cuts, and guess where they are going to come from?