State and territory leaders today convened an emergency Council for the Australian Federation (CAF) meeting to discuss the issue, led by Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff.<\/p>\n
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Tasmania’s Premier Jeremy Rockliff led the emergency meeting. (ABC News: Kate Nickels)<\/p>\n
They argued that a deal for the Commonwealth to pick up a greater share of public hospital funding had already been agreed to and should be honoured.<\/p>\n
“Premiers and first ministers met today. They expressed concern about how the federal government is approaching health and disability funding negotiations,” Mr Rockliff said.<\/p>\n
“States cannot cut public hospital activity to suit the federal government’s bottom line.”<\/p>\n
In 2023, the national cabinet agreed the Commonwealth would lift its funding share to 42.5 per cent by the end of the decade and then to 45 per cent by 2035.<\/p>\n
But the states have since accused the federal government of trying to walk back that commitment and are currently relying on an interim one-year funding top-up to tide them over as they negotiate the long-overdue five-year deal.<\/p>\n
As the federal government tries to straddle the enormous costs of contributing to an overburdened public hospital system with a federal budget deep in deficit, Mr Albanese warned the states that it was in their best interests to settle the issue.<\/p>\n
The federal government has been insisting it wants to finalise a deal by the end of the year, but at a press conference in Perth on Wednesday the prime minister was asked if he was confident that would happen.<\/p>\n
“We’ll wait and see,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If not, then the funding will roll over. So the states have a big incentive on engaging constructively because otherwise it rolls over for another year.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The prime minister pointed to the latest offer on the table which would see states receive an additional $20 billion over five years.<\/p>\n
However NSW Premier Chris Minns said the federal government had “far deeper pockets” than the states, and what was on the table was “just not good enough”.<\/p>\n
“Right across Australia \u2014 Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory \u2014 different states, different political parties run those states,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We can’t all be wrong.<\/p>\n
“It seems to me that the federal government is implying that all of the states have got it all wrong at exactly the same time.”<\/p>\n