Victorian Premier, John Brumby, takes on Howard:
"This business where the Federal Government is just shopping around Australia, trawling through marginal seats, finding a hospital that's struggling and saying, 'We'll bail it out' — it's the most appalling public policy I've seen in decades," he said. "It's an embarrassment."
"We have a good hospital system in Victoria — the best in Australia — but we don't have a hospital on every street corner," he said. "If you put a hospital on every street corner, you'll guarantee you will end up with a Third World hospital system.
"In recent years we've been cheated and robbed in relation to (Commonwealth) funding," he said. "For example, we're only getting 41 per cent of our hospital funding under the Medicare agreement. We're meant to be getting 50 per cent.
"So we need a better framework for federalism, in which to produce the best for the citizens of Victoria and Australia. But you can't do that if the Federal Government just bails out a hospital which is not viable."
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