BILL SHORTEN MP
LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS AND ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS
CATHERINE KING MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND MEDICARE
MEMBER FOR BALLARAT
MADELEINE KING MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR CONSUMER AFFAIRS
SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR RESOURCES
SHADOW MINISTER ASSISTING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
MEMBER FOR BRAND
BETTER HEALTH CARE FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIANS UNDER LABOR
Western Australia will benefit from better health and hospital services with a Shorten Labor Government investing an additional $110 million in vital new projects across the state.
Mark McGowan and his team are doing a great job fighting for better health care – but Western Australia deserves their fair share from the Federal Government. A Shorten Labor Government will partner with the McGowan Government to deliver the projects the state needs for better health.
Labor’s investment blitz will overhaul outdated regional hospitals, upgrade surgery facilities, provide new palliative care beds, and boost emergency capacity and dental services.
Labor’s new commitments will improve care for patients from central Perth to regional towns like Albany and further locations like Halls Creek.
Labor is today committing to fund seven new projects. We will:
- Build a clinical command centre at Royal Perth Hospital to help provide care to patients across Western Australia ($15m)
- Establish an all-new health clinic in Yanchep, where health services are sorely lacking ($18.2m)
- Replace the dilapidated and asbestos-riddled Laverton Hospital with a new contemporary facility
($12.8m), joining a McGowan Government commitment of $4 million to the project - Upgrade Collie Hospital’s surgery facilities so that locals can get world-class care close to home ($12.2m)
- Provide 25 new palliative care beds at Osborne Park Hospital to ensure more people get the best possible care at the end of their lives ($25m)
- Double the capacity of Albany Hospital’s dental clinic ($5m)
- Provide dialysis facilities for Halls Creek in the Kimberley ($700,000)
This new funding package comes on top of commitments Labor has already made to build an Urgent Care Centre in Fremantle ($5m); redevelop the Bentley Health Service ($10.9m); and upgrade Kalamunda District Community Hospital’s palliative care facilities ($7.6m).
That brings Federal Labor’s capital commitment to the state’s hospitals to an additional $112.4 million, with more to be announced.
This funding is in addition to Labor’s existing investment in expanding the Joondalup health campus, including the construction of a 75 bed mental health facility, as well as the rollout of new Medicare-funded MRI licences across the state.
Labor will also restore core funding to every public hospital, reversing Scott Morrison’s cuts.
We can afford these investments because we’ve made tough decisions to make multinationals pay their fair share and close unfair tax loopholes.
Scott Morrison and the Liberals cannot be trusted with health – as Treasurer Scott Morrison cut funding from health while trying to give a $80 billion tax handout to big business, including $17 billion to the big banks.
He cut $77 million from Western Australia’s hospitals under the current 2017 to 2020 funding agreement. And now he’s trying to lock in even bigger cuts for the next five years.
Labor is more than reversing the Liberal cuts with our $2.8 billion Better Hospitals Fund, which we will use to fund these vital projects.
Only Labor can be trusted to fix Western Australia’s hospitals.
MONDAY, 18 MARCH 2019