Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the hardworking senator for his question. The Labor-Greens carbon tax is having an enormous impact on our hospitals and health services. The figures in Victoria and New South Wales alone are staggering. For starters, allow me to inform the Senate of the impact of the Labor-Greens carbon tax on the New South Wales system. State treasury analysis released last year showed the carbon tax cost the state's health service a total of $26½ million. There are more than 220 public hospitals across the state, with the carbon tax costing the average hospital over $120,000 per year.

In Victoria in 2012-13, the carbon tax cost more than $13½ million in electricity and gas across the public health system. And it is not just the large city hospitals that have been hit with the carbon tax; regional health services are struggling with higher energy costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I note the very quiet response from the other side to these figures—Albury-Wodonga, Ballarat, Barwon, Bendigo, Goulburn Valley, Peninsula, South-West, Mildura and North-East Wangaratta healthcare services, to name some of them. In some cases the carbon tax was 18 per cent of the energy bill. Let me point out that this is just two states we are talking about. Consider the impact of the carbon tax—