Labor election hopes riding on health pitch

HEALTH was always going to be the main issue for voters in the state election.

Nothing else — not even jobs and the economy — worries voters quite so much.

This is the issue which Rebecca White and Labor believe can win them the election. Almost everything they have is riding on it.

Two big questions need to be answered. Will these proposals bring Tasmania’s public hospitals up to at least the standard of other states? Will it work politically and put them into government?

The Labor pitch was designed to produce an impressive headline — $560 million for health.

But that money is spread over six years, which works out to an average of only $93 million a year. That’s in the context of a total health budget of $1.5 billion and a state budget of $6 billion.

When you look at it that way, it’s much less impressive. And although extra state money will attract substantial Commonwealth funding we’re not now getting — and Canberra pays 45 per cent of the cost of treating every new patient — it is not enough. It will start the process of improvement but bringing the system up to an acceptable level will take a great deal more.

The biggest single problem facing our hospitals right now is that there is almost nowhere to put new beds. The Royal Hobart Hospital’s rebuild will not be ready for another two years. And once another few beds are shoehorned into the Launceston General Hospital, it will be full. With ever-rising patient numbers, the new Hobart space will be full within five years.

The Liberal Government’s biggest current problem in health is its neglect of health infrastructure and its mishandling of the decanting process in Hobart, creating serious and politically damaging crises that should have been foreseen.

Every campaign announcement by any party tries to limit the scope of political opponents to attack and negate it.

The Liberals’ claim is that “Labor cannot be trusted with money”. So these health an- nouncements have had to be made within current budgetary restrictions and without talking about borrowing.

If Labor wins government, they surely know they will have to do much more or face being another one-term government.

This will mean doing what almost every respectable economist from Saul Eslake to the International Monetary Fund are telling them to do — borrow to fund important infrastructure.

A hospital building may last for half a century but has to be paid for within two or three years.

Without borrowing to smooth it out, that can be a crippling hit to the day-to-day budget that pays doctors, nurses and teachers, and keeps the lights on.

And, particularly with current low interest rates, the benefit to the community of wise and prudent borrowing will be many times its cost.

Any company failing to borrow would be pilloried for having a lazy balance sheet.

Although Labor’s health election pitch is not much more than a start in terms of fixing health, it’s working for them politically.

Elections are about impressions. There is enough respectably costed detail in their plans to provide almost daily announcements and to keep voters attention securely on health, which is where Labor wants it.

The Liberals cannot campaign successfully on their record in health and hospitals.

The election will not be decided on pokies, and even that issue may benefit Labor more than the Liberals.

For voters, every election is a gamble. They feel they’ve lost that bet far too often and they’re sick of it.

They will have little patience with a government whose delivery falls short of its promises.