The Hon. Greg Hunt MP
Minister for Health and Aged Care
MEDIA RELEASE
11 May 2022
Labor caught out on Superclinic costings and fibs again
Labor’s campaign of secrecy around Super Clinics 2.0 continues, with Mr Albanese’s team refusing to confirm where they have announced the centres.
Labor’s shadow Health Minister Mark Butler said that Labor would “undertake a fully competitive process,” for the placement of the Super Clinic sites, however analysis of individual announcements shows 32 of the 50 sites have already been promised outside of a competitive process.
Of these sites, twenty-three of these clinics have been announced in ultra-marginal or marginal electorates, or safe Labor Seats.
The announcements draw sharp parallels to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Super Clinics fiasco, which were heavily criticised by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).
“Analysis of the distribution of the clinic locations announced in the 2007 election context shows that 54.8 per cent of clinics were located in marginal electorates.”
(Administration of the GP Super Clinics Program, ANAO, 2013)
Minister for Health and Aged Care, Greg Hunt, slammed Labor’s latest attempt to hide the true nature of the clinics, calling for Mr Albanese to come clean.
“This was Mr Albanese’s first health policy of the election campaign, now he is missing in action and Labor is refusing to put out the detail,” Minister Hunt said.
“Mr Albanese promised this plan was fully costed by the Parliamentary Budget Office, only for his Shadow Finance Minister to say it wasn’t.”
“Mr Albanese promised all services would be free, only for his Shadow Health Minister to say some people may be billed.”
“Now, Mr Albanese refuses to even say where his team is announcing the clinics. It is clear he is now embarrassed by his own health policy failures.”
“Pre-polling is now open, and Australians deserve to know. Mr Albanese must confirm if his plan has been costed as he promised, and why these clinics are not being put to a competitive process as promised.”
With Labor’s shroud of secrecy adding to the cavalcade of issues for the beleaguered policy, Minister Hunt was not shocked that Labor had begun to copy Coalition health policy.
The plagiarism is so prominent that a majority of Labor’s health policies have been copied from the Coalition, including announcements on Continuous Glucose Monitoring for people with diabetes, rural health, new training places for rural medical students, reducing the cost of medicines on the PBS, funding for mental health initiatives and funding for the Bragg Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Adelaide.
“They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Sadly for Labor, all it shows it a complete and utter failure over nine years to come up with alternate policies,” Minister Hunt said.
“Mr Albanese continues to show he and his team are not ready to manage Australia’s economy or Australia’s health.”
“Labor can’t manage money, when last in Government they stopped listing life-changing medications on the PBS, cut mental health services, cut funding for the private health insurance rebates for families and threatened medical research funding.”
–ENDS-