Jim Chalmers slams funding criticisms (22/5/2024)

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has slammed state government claims that Tasmania's health system is underfunded. Video by Aaron Smith (22/5/2024)

Transcript

00:00 Governor, it says Tasmanians have been left off the map yet again and that we're being

00:03 treated like second class citizens when it comes to the federal budget.

00:06 What's your response to that?

00:07 I think that's ridiculous.

00:09 Frankly that is ridiculous.

00:11 Tasmania is getting a greater than population share when it comes to infrastructure investment.

00:16 They're getting a big investment in local healthcare like the expansion of urgent care

00:22 clinics like this one.

00:24 Two hundred and eighty thousand taxpayers in Tasmania are getting a tax cut, almost

00:30 all of them a bigger tax cut than they were going to be getting from the Liberal Party.

00:34 Two hundred and sixty thousand households will be getting energy bill relief and so

00:39 I don't think the very partisan comments being made by that gentleman stack up against the

00:45 facts.

00:46 What Mr Barnett is saying is not quite correct.

00:49 The GPs who have been assisted, they provide services to state government facilities and

00:54 then they provide a separate GP service as well which the state government does not fund.

01:01 So they're not really dipping into their coffers to assist those GPs.

01:05 The GPs are contracted to provide services to hospitals and then they run a separate

01:09 private practice.

01:10 We all know that GPs across the country, particularly in regional Australia, there's real pressure.

01:15 Our government is doing a lot to try and address that.

01:18 We've got a single employer model in concert with the state government here in Tasmania

01:23 to try to address some of those issues.

01:25 So we are taking the issue very seriously but Mr Barnett needs to stop playing politics.

01:30 He should listen to Peter Dutton's budget reply speech.

01:33 Not a word about Tasmania and in fact virtually declaring war on renewable energy which of

01:38 course is going to be responsible for thousands of jobs across my electorate of lines.

01:43 So Mr Barnett needs to stop playing politics, work with our government rather than working

01:47 against it.

01:48 What we've got under the federal Labor government, under Jim's leadership, under the Prime Minister

01:52 is more jobs, record jobs under this government, higher wages, bigger tax cuts and a plan for

02:00 a future made in Australia.

02:02 [laughter]

02:02 [end]