Public hospitals will be “fully funded” in a one-year deal, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese committing to an additional $1.7 billion to cut wait times and ease pressure on emergency departments.
“This decision today will help save lives and lead to better outcomes for our nation’s hospitals,” Mr Albanese said.
The funding will lift the Commonwealth’s contribution to public hospital funding by 12 per cent to a total $33.91 billion next financial year.
But Health Minister Mark Butler said the government had run out of time to renew the five-year funding deal between the Commonwealth and the states before the next federal election.
“States and territories understand that the conclusion of a 5-year deal — which is what they’re after and what was committed by the prime minister at the national cabinet meeting in December 2023 — remains tied to that NDIS reform process continuing as it would,” Mr Butler said.
“So, all jurisdictions have agreed over recent days to a single-year rollover agreement for 2025-26 which, in addition to the usual increases that they would be expecting under existing arrangements, include this $1.7 billion top-up.
“For too long we’ve seen governments stuck in trench warfare playing the blame game on hospital funding. This infuriates Australians when all they want is to make sure they don’t spend hours ramped in an ambulance or waiting in an overcrowded emergency department.”
The Albanese government is working with the states and territories to develop a “foundational supports” system for some people with disability after reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme were passed last year to slow the growing costs of the scheme.
Labor draws battlelines on health care
The prime minister used the announcement to focus Labor’s attack on the Coalition over health care, saying Labor created Medicare and would protect it.
“Our public health system is too precious to entrust to [Opposition Leader] Peter Dutton and the Liberals, who ripped $50 billion out of public hospital funding when he was health minister,” he said.
Mr Albanese is seeking to make health care a central issue in the coming federal election, and has repeatedly claimed it would not be safe from cuts under Mr Dutton.
Seeking to shut down that line of attack, Mr Dutton vowed last month that funding for Medicare would not go backwards under a Coalition government.
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