Will Hodgman,Premier
Today’s failed no-confidence stunt by Labor has done nothing but waste a day of Parliamentary time and prevent the Government’s legislation to establish guaranteed jail time for child sex offenders from passing.
Labor knew their motion would fail and yet pushed ahead anyway as a tactic to avoid scrutiny on their continued opposition to mandatory sentences for child sex offenders.
The Liberal Government has a strong track record of investing in health, under Minister Michael Ferguson.
In the past five years, we have employed an additional 800 FTEs in health, increased health funding by nearly $2 billion since the 2013-14 Budget and opened more than 130 new beds across the State.
We have always acknowledged more needs to be done and we are actively working with health experts, stakeholder groups and clinicians to find and implement solutions.
In the past 12 months alone, the Minister has attended more than 180 stakeholder meetings and hospital visits, and has held public health forums in the South, North and North-West every year.
But we have seen a 21 per cent increase in demand on the Royal Hobart Hospital, and cases presenting to our hospitals are more complex.
We will continue to work with staff to find solutions to this reality, and we are building the space we need to open more beds and employ more staff as quickly as possible.
Over the next five years, we will:
- Finish the RHH, LGH and Mersey Redevelopments
- Open nearly 300 more hospital beds
- Recruit almost 1000 new staff into our health system
- Open acute mental health facilities for adolescents for the first time in Tasmania
- Have 27 new community-based mental health beds in modern facilities
- Recruit more than 50 new paramedics in our ambulance service
- Have comprehensive and up-to-date masterplans in place for all four major hospitals
We will continue to work hard to improve our health system and we will never stop listening to what our frontline staff and health stakeholders are telling us, which is that they want less politics in health and more focus on outcomes. We are getting on with the job.
