In another serious blunder, the bumbling shadow Treasurer, Scott Bacon, has again showed how inexperienced Labor is when it comes to the budget and financial matters.
The 2016-17 Budget forecast Health expenditure over four years of $6.428 billion. In the 2017-18 Budget total expenditure on health over four years is $7.086 billion, an increase of $658 million.
A subset of this funding is the Tasmanian Health Service.
Mr Bacon’s claims that funding for the Tasmanian Health Service is going down between 2016-17 and 2017-18 are completely wrong and a major embarrassment for Labor.
If Mr Bacon had read the Budget Papers, he would have seen on page 59 of Budget Paper 1 an additional $100 million allocated to health funding from Finance-General, including an additional $20 million in 2017-18.
This is the second major blunder in just two days from the failed shadow Treasurer.
The fact is, we are making a record $7 billion investment into health.
It’s a serious concern that the person Rebecca White would like to see become Treasurer clearly doesn’t understand the budget or how the State’s finances work. It’s little wonder that Ms White has all but gone into hiding and refuses to support Mr Bacon’s bizarre budget claims. He’s clearly an embarrassment to her and a big part of the reason why Labor refuses to release an alternative budget.