The Health Minister has today cast doubt over the futures of 1,100 nurses funded by the former Coalition Government’s record health spend.
Last year’s Coalition Budget delivered a record spend of more than $33 billion, including more than $30 billion in recurrent funding. This investment in our health sector included an increase to the health workforce of more than 10,000 full time equivalent staff over four years. An additional 1,100 COVID nurse positions were created to deliver world class healthcare.
But today in Parliament, Health Minister Ryan Park suggested that under the Labor Government many of the nurses could be out of a job, when during a bizarre display he described 1,100 staff as “gone”.
Shadow Health Minister Matt Kean said that during the election Labor had promised not only to match the Coalition’s investment, but to employ 1,200 additional nurses on top of that, yet now it appears 1,100 are not going to have their contracts extended by the Labor Government.
“If Labor were telling the truth during the election, Ryan Park would be renewing the contracts for every one of these essential workers – otherwise this is just another broken Labor promise.”
“Our record investment in the health system and on health workers had raised the bar, but it appears that Premier Chris Minns, Daniel Mookhey and Ryan Park are more interested in paying former Labor staffers to write reports than they are in keeping these nurses.”