Confirmed: Tasmania dudded over RHH funding deal

CONFIRMED: TASMANIA DUDDED OVER RHH FUNDING DEAL
Only About $1 in $5 is New Money

The Tasmanian Greens said that the Premier Lara Giddings had confirmed that Tasmania had been dudded over the $340 million Royal Hobart Hospital Wilkie-Gillard deal, which had been sold to Tasmanians on numerous occasions as “new money.”

Greens Health spokesperson Paul O’Halloran MP said that, in response to a question in Parliament today, the Premier had confirmed that Tasmania would lose about $88 million per year in GST over a period of three years under the Commonwealth’s redistribution process.

“The Tasmanian public were led to believe that we received a $340 million dollars in new money from the Federal Government as part of the federal funding deal between Julia Gillard and Andrew Wilkie for the Royal Hobart Hospital,” Mr O’Halloran said.

“The Premier has confirmed that all but about 22 per cent of this money will come directly from the State Budget, at a time when frontline services are being stretched to breaking point.”

“When this matter was raised in December last year, Mr Wilkie lashed out at the Greens in paid advertisements which stated that ‘virtually all of this is NEW money – money that the state would not have otherwise received’.”

“The Greens were pilloried for raising this matter on behalf of the Tasmanian people, who are entitled to know how their money is being spent.”

“It has now been confirmed that our suspicions about this deal were entirely correct,” Mr O’Halloran said.

Download: Paid newspaper advertisement by Andrew Wilkie, 10 Dec 2011:
May22_Andrew_Wilkie_newspaper_ad_ATTACH.pdf