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 Home News Public Health
Federal Health Minister admits making policy on the run11 October 2007On ABC radio (Radio National, 11 October 2007) Federal Health Minister, Tony Abbott, admitted that after 11 years of underfunding hospitals that it took an election year for the the federal government to "get into the business of hospital reform". "We started to get into the business of public hospital reform because the Tasmanian Government was proposing more or less to close down the Mersey Hospital" he said. He then admitted that public hospital funding was a problem, after admitting last week that his Government had failed to adequately fund public hospitals: "The problem with public hospitals at the moment is partly money." When asked if his hospitals policy was an election stunt, Mr Abbott refused to answer - as he has in the past when asked about the Mersey Hospital takeover. During the interview, ABC jounalist, Fran Kelly said, "... It's hard to believe though that the fact that the two [hospitals] singled out so far, are not because, just this close to an election, these happen to be in two marginal seats. Tell me that that's not true." Mr Abbott refused to do so. He later said, "What we're now saying is quite consistent with the kinds of things that we've been saying for the last couple of years." Mr Abbott's admission that his hospitals policy has been made on the run, and his constant contradictions of himself and other Government members, stand in contrast to Federal Labor's detailed national, coordinated $2 billion plan to improve our health and hospitals. Download File: |
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© 2003 Health Services Union (HSU) |
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