Before the election Tony Abbott promised no cuts to health and no cuts to education. In his first budget Tony Abbott has ripped $80 billion dollars from schools and hospitals, and the pain from these cuts start 1 July.
Australian families are rightly concerned about Tony Abbott’s broken promises as the cuts start to be felt across Australia.
Over the next decade, Tony Abbott’s hospital cuts of more than $50 billion are the equivalent of:
• Sacking 1 in 5 nurses;
• Sacking 1 in 3 doctors; and
• Closing 1 in 13 hospital beds.
These cuts will increase emergency department waiting times, increase elective surgery waiting times, and reduce the number of hospital beds across the country.
These cuts will mean less doctors, nurses, midwives, psychologists, radiographers and oncologists.
The Abbott Government’s own budget papers clearly demonstrate that the cuts to hospitals start at the beginning of this financial year and totally ignore an agreement that state and territory governments signed up to.
Tony Abbott’s broken promises will mean the states will have billions of dollars less to fund hospital beds and employ doctors and nurses. Every Australian patient will be much worse off.
Tony Abbott might have lied to the Australian people but he cannot hide what his own budget papers show. His own budget papers show he plans to cut money from Australia’s hospitals in the first year he is able to.
Australia’s most senior medical experts have already warned that public hospitals are stretched to meet demand, and that these changes will set healthcare in Australia back by more than 50 years.
Only Labor will stand up to Tony Abbott’s $80 billion worth of health and education cuts.
Labor is fighting these changes and will not allow Medicare to become a victim of Tony Abbott’s growing list of broken promises.
Tony Abbott cannot be believed when it comes to health.