LOCAL MP Andrew Broad (pictured) has flatly rejected claims his government has withdrawn health funding from the Victorian Government, leading to a $73 million shortfall in the budgets of the state’s hospitals.
On Monday, The Guardian reported Swan Hill District Health would struggle to cover a $270,000 hole in its budget as a result of the disagreement over health funding between the state and federal governments.
The hospital’s CEO, Ted Rayment, said he’d found out about the funding retraction via a letter from Victorian Health Minister Jill Henessy claiming $73 million would need to be cut from the state’s health spending due to an “adjustment” to its funding arrangement with the Commonwealth Government.
Member for Mallee Andrew Broad told The Guardian the adjustment was a result of an accounting mistake from the Victorian Government and didn’t amount to a funding withdrawal from Canberra.
“Victoria is claiming the feds are cutting their payments for the rest of the year by $73 million but Minister (Sussan) Ley has claimed that Victoria has over-claimed funds in the past and this is an adjustment by the administrator of the National Health Funding Pool to correct the over-claimed funds,” he said.
“Health funding is distributed like the way GST is distributed, it’s distributed through a third party. The administrator of the National Health Funding Pool collects the funding and channels it through to the states.
“Obviously there’s been a misunderstanding, for want of a better word, between what Victoria thinks it’s entitled to and what they actually are.”
Mr Broad said Ms Henessy was trying to stir controversy for the federal Coalition in the lead up to the national elections later this year, and it could actually make up for the funding adjustment easily.
“The funding shortfall is miniscule compare to the $10 billion that they get in GST,” he said.
“They could easily say, ‘right, we acknowledge there’s a funding shortfall there because we haven’t done our books right so $73 million on the state health budget for across the state of Victoria is a drop in the ocean and we wont make a political issue out of it’.
“But they’re choosing to make a political issue in the lead-up to the election and I think that’s their motivation.”
The Health Minister’s office was approached for comment but failed to return communication before deadline.
