The Abbott Government’s hypocrisy on health funding continues to scale new heights with the Health Minister opening another medical facility funded by a Labor program she scrapped, and denounced as wasteful.
The Mansfield District Hospital’s Primary Care Precinct was funded by Labor’s Health and Hospitals Fund which was established to build and upgrade health and medical research and training facilities across Australia.
The fund was scrapped in the Abbott Government’s first Budget, one of the many victims of a Budget which ripped $60 billion out of health and hospital funding, and sought to hit patients with a GP Tax and higher prescription charges.
Earlier this year, the minister defended the scrapping of this fund, declaring that the money “was spent very rapidly and I think unwisely”.
Despite this, the minister has been happy to travel the country claiming credit for medical facilities built with Labor’s Fund, including the Children’ Bioresearch Centre at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute which she called “a new world-class, cutting edge medical research facility that will help find new treatments and cures for childhood illness.”
Now, in yet another absolutely shameless performance, the minister is again happy to pose for the cameras, opening one of the many great facilities built by the Labor fund she scrapped, and denounced.