Turnbull’s dud COAG hospital deal

Well today at the Council of Australian Governments Malcolm Turnbull is trying to lock in public hospital funding cuts for the next seven years. Be of no doubt, this is a lousy deal, and the Government knows it. It is such a lousy deal for hospitals and our public patients.

 

The Government is trying to lock the states into the existing funding agreement for the next seven years. That is a funding agreement that is a cut on Labor's previously negotiated agreements with the states and territories. It takes Commonwealth funding to basically the status quo. No additional funding for our public hospitals. No additional funding to get down elective surgery and emergency department waiting times. And it really does leave our patients and our doctors and our nurses in our public hospitals across this country in a desperate state.

 

If Malcolm Turnbull and Greg Hunt think this is such a generous offer, why did they keep it secret, why did we have to find out in the middle of this week that this was going to be put to COAG at the last minute, and why are they now using dodgy statistics to try and claim that this isn't a cut, that it is somehow a very generous offer. They are so out of touch if they think the status quo for public hospital funding is actually an improvement.