Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The figure that the member for Ballarat cites was not in a Labor budget. There were unsustainable, undeliverable, pie-in-the-sky promises that were only made by the former government because they knew they would never be called upon to deliver them. Let us make it absolutely crystal clear for the umpteenth time: under this government public hospital funding increases every year; under this government health spending increases every year; and public hospital funding goes up nine per cent this year, nine per cent next year, nine per cent the year after that and six per cent in the fourth year.

Ms King interjecting—

The member opposite can bellow all she likes, but the fact is that public hospital spending and health spending go up every year. The difference is that our spending is sustainable in a way that the former government's was not, because this coalition government is tackling the debt and deficit disaster which members opposite are so rightly embarrassed about. They are rightly embarrassed about the debt and deficit disaster that they bequeathed to the nation that means that every single month we are now paying $1 billion in dead money that we should not have to pay. Just think how much better we could do when it comes to building new public hospitals if we were not wasting $1 billion every single month because people like the member that asked that this question were just out-and-out incompetent and utterly untrustworthy.

See this speech in context