Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member and make a very clear point: Labor don't just hate private health; they're 'medifrauds' as well. There's a reason. That is because, under us, what you have seen is record hospital funding every year, in every state and in every territory. Let me repeat that: record hospital funding every year, in every state, in every territory. If you want to understand about Tasmania, when we came to office, the figure that was given under the previous Labor government at the federal level was $299 million in 2013. Then, under us, it went to $330 million, $375 million, $387 million, $393 million, $408 million, $423 million and going up and up each and every year. That is what is actually happening: record funding under us and each year is a record year.

An interesting thing, though, is that, since we have come in, our funding to state hospitals has increased by 34 per cent. How much has state funding increased to state hospitals? Ten per cent. So we have increased funding at more than three times the rates of the states. Our funding is up $103 billion over the current five-year period. It's at $103 billion. Under Labor, federally, in the entire six years that they were in government, it was $73 billion. But if you say, 'Gosh, gee, it's a little bit later in time. What is the growth rate?' I'll tell you. Under Labor it was six per cent; under us, it's 7.9 per cent. In other words, our growth rate is 1.9 per cent higher than under the previous Labor government. These people are not just haters of private health insurance; they're 'medifrauds'.

You know what? There was a particular document that fell into my hands. It happened to be from the shadow minister for health and Medicare. It was after a meeting.

An honourable member: Table it.

I will table it. It was after a meeting, with the participation, as she says, of over 150 leading thinkers on health. It sounds a bit like the citizens assembly—coincidentally, exactly the same numbers. They then produced their document on their health policy.

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

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