Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Regional Communications) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Senator, I can. I'm proud to be part of the government who is absolutely committed to bringing the budget back into balance and whose track record on economic growth has seen one million new jobs created since coming into government. It's because of the coalition's strong economic management that we've been able to deliver the essential services in health that all Queenslanders rely on. Commonwealth funding in public hospitals in Queensland has increased from $2.7 billion, when we came to government, to $6.5 billion in 2024-25, which is a 145 per cent increase over that period.

We put forward a generous offer to states and territories. We've committed an additional $30 billion for public hospitals. That equates to millions of new hospital services each year for Australian patients, and in our public hospitals, and thousands of new frontline doctors and nurses. Under the new deal, Queensland will receive an additional $7.5 billion over five years for public hospital services and that's an increase of over 34 per cent. Three Labor and three Liberal governments have signed on but, unfortunately, the Queensland state Labor government has not. This is despite that every year there would be a record funding amount in each and every state and territory meaning more doctors, more nurses and more services for the patients of Longman. Like any Labor politician, Annastacia Palaszczuk is putting politics ahead of patients and turning her back on more than $7.5 billion in additional funding for Queensland patients.