‘Mediscare’ campaign rocks day one of QLD election battle

Queensland’s largest union has launched a “Mediscare” style campaign claiming - with no evidence - the LNP are attempting to privatise health services.

A scare campaign on health services has kicked off the four-week election campaign.

Queensland’s largest union has launched a “Mediscare” style campaign claiming the LNP are planning to privatise health services.

The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union in an election eve ad blitz has called for voters to “put the LNP last” as the party was planning to “privatise health services” – despite having no evidence.

The union bases its claim on comments made by opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates, where she voiced support for an existing $100m government scheme to use private hospitals to treat public patients in a bid to treat Queenslanders closer to where they live.

The union ad is reminiscent of the 2016 Federal Labor scare campaign claiming a Coalition government would privatise Medicare.

It claims “the LNP wants to privatise health services in Queensland. If your budget is stretched, you can’t afford the LNP”.

Ms Bates on Monday said Labor and the unions couldn’t “get their scare campaigns straight”.

“There’s no doubt they’ll continue their desperate attempts to hide from Labor’s failures in our health system,” Ms Bates said.

Ros Bates. Picture: Richard Walker

The QNMU, in a bid to back its claim, pointed to comments made by Ms Bates at the union’s annual conference in July.

“The government sees merit in using private health care services where appropriate as announced as recently as the weekend, and so do we,” Ms Bates said, in an excerpt of her speech shared by the QNMU.

“If it can achieve a good health care outcome for the patient, then I’m always open to these types of arrangements and evidently the government is open to them too.”  

In a version of the speech provided to The Courier-Mail by the LNP, Ms Bates also voiced the need to properly resource the public health system.

“I will make this point at the outset – while there is merit in working with the private hospital system, that doesn’t takeaway from the fact that the state’s public system needs to be adequately resourced as well,” she said. The QNMU said the absence of a detailed health plan from the LNP ahead of the election was “disturbing”.

“Queenslanders are struggling to access and afford basic health care, so it is more important than ever that both major parties provide transparent and comprehensive health plans,” QNMU assistant secretary Grant Burton said. “Without a detailed LNP health plan, it’s impossible for the QNMU and our 74,000 members to move forward with confidence.”

The QNMU sent a list of workforce demands, in a petition backed by more than 12,600 of its members, to Premier Steven Miles and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli with a deadline of September 15. While Mr Miles responded with some “promising commitments”, the QNMU said the LNP indicated they would not respond until October 11.