Campaign focus turns to health as Greens attack 'dirty' preference deal

SBS World News Radio: As the election campaign focus turns to health, the coalition is promising to simplify the private health system and Labor is pledging to pump $2 billion extra into public hospitals.

Campaign focus turns to health as Greens attack 'dirty' preference dealCampaign focus turns to health as Greens attack 'dirty' preference deal

Campaign focus turns to health as Greens attack 'dirty' preference deal

With three weeks to go until the federal election, the campaign focus has shifted to health.

The coalition is promising to simplify the private health system and Labor is pledging to pump $2 billion extra into public hospitals.

It comes as the Liberal Party outlined its preferences, placing Labor ahead of the Greens.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed he's directed the Liberal Party to preference the Greens below Labor in all lower house seats.

He says a Labor-Greens coalition would be a disaster for Australia and a return to the economic chaos of the Gillard-Rudd years.

"This is a call that I have made in the national interests. Let us be quite clear about this. The big risk at this election is that we would end up with an unstable, chaotic minority Labour, Greens, Independent government as we have seen before. As you have seen, some of the old band are trying to get back together. Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott are running. You have the Greens obviously snapping at Labor's heels trying to pull Labor to the left - and succeeding I might add - with higher taxes, weaker border protection, a more anti-business agenda."

The Australian Greens party has called the decision a 'dirty deal', likening the two major parties to a duopoly.

The party has demanded Labor take back its claim that the Greens had done a deal with the Liberals.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale accused both parties of working together to block the influence of the Greens and Independents.

"What we know is that this had nothing to do with principle, and everything to do with a dirty deal between the Labor and the Liberal Party - the Coles and Woolies of politics. The Labor Party have handed over three seats to the Liberals in some regional electorates. But what we don't know, what else is in this deal. We don't know whether the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party are joining together to lock out other independents."

In Queensland, Opposition leader Bill Shorten said the preferences deal was a matter for the Liberals.

Labor is yet to announce what it will put on its how-to-vote cards.

Mr Shorten spent Sunday afternoon at a children's ward at Townsville Hospital, where he unveiled Labor's hospital policy.

He says Labor will spend $2 billion more on public hospitals than the federal government, and it will also restore the former Labor government's 2011 funding agreement with the States and Territories.

Mr Shorten accused the Liberals of planning to privatise parts of the healthcare system.

He says Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull cannot be trusted to build and maintain Medicare.

"But back in the Seventies, when Labor first pushed for universal healthcare, Fraser then abolished it. It took Bob Hawke and a Labor government in 1983 to reintroduce it and for a series of elections after that the Liberals were trying to undermine Medicare. I frankly thought the Medicare wars were over. Now we see Tony Abbott and now Malcolm Turnbull making swinging cuts, that is an arguable, freezing GP payments for six years. That'll kill bulk billing. Now they have set up a secret taskforce in their own Department of Health to look at how you privatise the system and parts of the system. No wonder Bob Hawke is up in arms."

Meanwhile, the federal government pledged to establish gold, silver and bronze private health policy categories, if re-elected.

Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley says the reform package would also include setting minimum standards for the 40,000 private health insurance products on the market.

She says the plan will help consumers to know if they're getting value for money.

"Because if you take out the wrong product, you often find out the hard way. You've spent thousands over the years and you're not covered for the thing you want to be covered for. But you might in fact have cover for something that you will never need."

Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke also entered the election campaign, appearing in an advertisement to urge voters to back Labor's efforts to protect Medicare.

In the 30-second advertisement, Mr Hawke sits behind a deak and warns of Coalition plans to privatise the publicly-funded universal healthcare system he introduced in 1983.

"And now the Liberals have set up a Medicare privatisation task force. Everybody knows you don't set up a Medicare privatisation task force unless you aim to privatise Medicare."

 






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