Australian Medical Association president says three months extra Covid support ‘will not fix a decade of hospital underfunding’
National cabinet has agreed to extend a 50-50 split of health funding but no outcome was reached on calls for an east coast gas reservation policy, in the midst of an energy crisis that has set power prices soaring.
“[WA] have a domestic gas reservation policy and the skies aren’t falling in,” Malinauskas said. “In fact, arguably, they’re in a better position than the rest of the country.” The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, said after the meeting that his state was ruling nothing out when it came to gas exploration but remained committed to a ban on fracking. The NSW premier,, said his government was “completely committed” to the Narrabri gas project, under which he said supplier Santos had agreed to a reservation policy as a “key component”.
The 50-50 funding split was backed by premiers, but did not gain support from the federal government. National cabinet stopped short of backing longstanding calls from state premiers and the AMA for an increase to ongoing hospital funding. “The national partnership funding is critical to dealing with Covid demand now, but this short extension will not see us through the hospital crisis, nor through Covid, nor through the additional pent-up demand from two years of lockdowns,” Khorshid said.
“This is something that has been in the too-hard basket for too long,” he said. “We certainly got a sense today from the prime minister that we’d come back to a national cabinet before the budget.”National cabinet also agreed to find “practical improvements” to GPs and hospitals, including pathways to free up hospital beds occupied by aged care residents and NDIS participants, and find those people more appropriate accommodation.