Rudd Government Minister clueless about Labor’s regional hospitals policy

A Rudd Government Minister was the subject of ridicule today when he was unable to answer three basic health policy questions from Nationals Senator Fiona Nash during Question Time. Senator Nash said she was astonished Senator Ludwig, who represents Health Minister Nicola Roxon in the Senate seemed clueless about Labor’s widely publicised pre-election hospital pledges. The questions Senator Ludwig couldn’t answer were: 1. Can the Minister confirm the Budget spends around four hundred times more money on pink batts and other insulation measures than on new funding for Health Care Infrastructure in Rural Australia? 2. Does the Minister recall that the Prime Minister said the buck stopped with him when it comes to health and that he would take over all of Australian 750 public hospitals by mid 2009 if the States hadn’t fixed them? 3. Does the Minister concede that with a $58 billion Labor deficit, there is now no chance of the Prime Minister keeping his promise to “fix our hospitals”? “The correct answers should have been yes to all three questions,” Senator Nash said. “There is just $9.2 million in new funding for what the Budget papers call Health Care Infrastructure in Rural Australia, compared to $3.9billion for pink batts, etc; several Labor MPs were elected on the back of Kevin Rudd’s promise he would ‘fix our hospitals’ by mid 2009; and massive self-imposed budget deficits forecast for the next two years have stripped the Government of the ability to keep its pledge.” “It all proves the PM’s promise to fix our hospitals by mid 2009 and claims that the health buck stopped with him were election pledges Labor never intended to honour,” Senator Nash concluded. Contact: Murray Lees, media adviser, 0417 406 338

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