HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-06-17 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Health Funding

Dr McFETRIDGE (Morphett) (15:50): In question time today we heard the health minister talking about the reduction in funding to the South Australian government and, as a consequence of that, the reduction in funding to the South Australian health department. Let us put all of this in perspective—and I remember having a similar argument with the Minister for Police when I had the shadow police ministry. The health department is actually getting a lot more money than they have ever had from the federal government. They are not getting as much as they expected, sure, but then, when you are paying a billion dollars a month in interest on the debt, isn't that to be expected?

For the Labor Party to come in here and blame the federal Liberal Party for death, disaster and an apocalypse that is coming in the next few years is a bit rich. It is a bit rich, particularly when you also consider the state of the state. Let us put this all into perspective: this is budget week and we know there is some excitement. We know there are drops. We know there are leaks. We know there are announcements, but 'all will be revealed on Thursday' we are told time and time again.

We know what crisis management is: crisis management 101 is all about deny, deny, deny, deflect, deflect, deflect. Let us look at the actual cost to the taxpayers of this state of 12 years of hard Labor. Six years of deficit in seven. Labor promised $2.6 billion in surpluses and they are delivering $2.9 billion in deficits. The debt is $14 billion in 2016, so we are paying about $3 million a day in interest. As the member for Heysen often says, what could you do with that $3 million every day if you could give it to each of the communities in South Australia?—every day. It is not going to the Belgian dentists as it was in the State Bank time when Labor sent the state broke last time. They are doing it again now. Tax liabilities will soon exceed $25 billion. We are the highest taxed state in the nation, and it goes on and on from there.

The state is in a deplorable state after 12 years of Labor. We are going to get excuse after excuse, denial after denial, deflection after deflection from this government, particularly from the Treasurer on Thursday. However, let us have a look at the total extra funding that South Australia is getting from the federal government. Sure, we would like more, but when you have had a previous federal Labor government that has run up the debt and deficit so high that we are paying a billion dollars every month in interest on the debt, then you really have to start thinking, 'Is it going to be possible to increase at the rate that they had promised? It was never in the forward estimates, but it was there. I will be interested to see what the Treasurer has to say about the Kevin Foley excuse: having the moral fibre to go back on their promises.

The specific purpose payments that are being received from the federal government included with the GST revenue, by 2016-17 it will be nearly a billion dollars extra—$855 million extra. The $655 million the health minister said today was coming out of the health budget is probably the increase that they were expecting, which was coming out of the Magic Pudding, put out there by the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments. It was not the case. The federal health minister in a media report today said that commonwealth health funding to South Australia has grown by $332 million over the next four years.

So, health funding from the commonwealth to South Australia is not reducing, it is increasing by $332 million over the next four years. For the minister to come in here and say that it is the end of the world, that we are going to be closing hospital beds tomorrow, that is only going to be if he continues to implement his cuts because of this government's bad management. That is what has happened; that is what we are facing on Thursday in this place. South Australians have to lay the blame on Labor.

This government is trying to lay the blame on the federal Libs; well, the South Australian government should lay the blame on this state Labor government, because that is where it stops. It stops with the minister. The former minister for health (John Hill) said in this place, 'The South Australian public expect a really good public health system and the buck stops with me.' That is what he said: the buck stopped with him as the minister. So, minister Snelling, when you are handing down the health budget and trying to explain this budget to us on Thursday, the buck stops with you and your former health ministers in this place as well.

Let us just go to another one of my portfolios. I am covering health in this place and am happy to assist the Hon. Stephen Wade in the other place, who has health, but I also have emergency services. Let us just see what they have done to emergency services over the last four years. This is out of the Report on Government Services 2014: they have actually reduced, in real terms (in 2012-13 dollars), real revenue of fire service organisations from $193.4 million in 2008-09 to $178.5 million. The fire and emergency services are expected to do more with less. This government is an atrocious government.

Time expired.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT