Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

We can compare notes on the 36 per cent TPP! But I should not get sidetracked by these issues, because what I wanted to do was actually put some facts on the table that Senator Dastyari neglected, which is why he did not want to engage in that debate. I will go a little bit to Senator Dastyari's home state, as well as other states.

Let us start with hospitals, because hospital funding from the Commonwealth is increasing at a significant rate. Commonwealth funding for hospitals, contrary to what those opposite say, is expected to grow significantly in the future, from $13.5 billion in 2013-14 to $18.3 billion in 2017-18, an increase of almost $5 billion. What part of that is a cut? We have to put facts on the table to counter the misrepresentations from those opposite. Hospital funding will grow from $13½ billion in 2013-14 to $18.3 billion in 2017-18.

In Queensland, hospital funding will increase from $3 billion in 2014-15 to $3.7 billion in 2017-18—a $700 million increase in Queensland. In New South Wales, Senator Dastyari's home state, it will increase from $4.7 billion in 2014-15 to almost $5.8 billion in 2017-18. That is a massive increase—from $4.7 billion to $5.8 billion in New South Wales. Then we go to Victoria, where it will increase from $3.7 billion to $4.5 billion; in South Australia, from $1 billion to $1.3 billion; in Western Australia, from $1.7 billion to $2.1 billion; in the ACT, from $283 million to $300 million; and, in Tasmania, from $312 million to $380 million. In the Northern Territory, hospital funding will increase each year from $153 million in 2014-15 to $192 million in 2017-18.

Those are the facts. That is what is happening under the coalition government, despite the absolute financial mess left by the economic vandals on the other side, the Labor Party, supported by those other economic vandals, the Greens. Despite that, we are seeing a massive increase in Commonwealth investment in hospitals in this country, as I have just laid out state by state, territory by territory.

Labor claimed that, in the never-never, beyond the forward estimates, they would somehow find billions of extra dollars over and above the billions of extra dollars that we are actually delivering. We know that claim was false. We know they could not have done it. It will be interesting to hear—and I do not know if it is Senator Cameron who will be following me in speaking—from Labor senators whether or not they will now commit to that growth beyond the out years that they apparently were so keen on but could never find the money for. We are delivering the billions of extra dollars.

The test for the Labor Party now is that, if they believe in that policy—if they believe in the never-never projections that they did not fund, they were not prepared to fund and they could not find the money for—they should commit to it. We could actually have a policy now from the Labor Party that, if they are re-elected beyond the out years, beyond the increases that we are delivering, they will have massive increases on top of that. If we do not hear that, we will know that it is all hollow rhetoric: they never intended to deliver it. They did not have the capacity to deliver it and now they will not commit to it. But perhaps they will prove me wrong, and we will hear them say in this debate, 'Yes, we actually now are going to be able to deliver it. It's a promise. We will deliver.' I do not think they will.

Let us go to education. Total recurrent Commonwealth funding to all schools across Australia will total over $65 billion as at MYEFO over the 2014-17 funding period. Of course, we are delivering more in these four years than the Labor Party were going to deliver, because they ripped out $1.2 billion. So not only are we delivering the increase; we are delivering an extra $1.2 billion. If Labor had been re-elected, there would be $1.2 billion less in the four-year budget period for schools in this country. That is a fact.

Total Commonwealth funding to all schools across Australia will increase by $4 billion, a 29 per cent increase from 2014-17: 9.3 per cent from 2014-15; 8.2 per cent from 2015-16; and 9.1 per cent from 2016-17. Total Commonwealth funding to government schools will grow by $1.8 billion by 2017, a 37.1 per cent increase, while funding to the non-government sector will grow by 24.5 per cent over the same period. Here in the ACT, we know that funding for government schools will grow by $10 million by 2017, a 13.8 per cent increase, while funding for the non-government sector will grow by 20.5 per cent over the same period.

This MPI is scaremongering. It is wrong. The facts are that we are increasing health and education funding, even if we inherited Labor's— (Time expired)