Scott Morrison’s ‘shakedown politics’ comment ‘absolutely offensive’, emergency physician says

A top physician broke down in tears on The Project last night, hitting out at Scott Morrison. The government has defended its record.

An emergency physician struggled through tears during an interview on The Project on Friday night, as he lashed out at Prime Minister Scott Morrison over his reluctance to provide further federal health care funding to Queensland.

However, a federal government spokesperson has since hit back, saying its funding for hospitals in Queensland had increased 101 per cent since 2012-2013, while the Queensland government’s contribution for its own health system had only jumped 53 per cent in the same period.

“The federal government’s funding contribution for public hospitals services in Queensland has grown substantially from $2.7 billion in 2012-13 to $5.4 billion in 2019-20,” a spokesperson told news.com.au on Saturday.

“Over the same time period, Queensland government funding for their own hospitals has increased by only 53 per cent.”

It comes after former Australian Medical Association vice president Stephen Parnis said working on the frontline during the Covid-19 pandemic had been “traumatic”, as he dubbed Mr Morrison’s stance “absolutely offensive”.

“The numbers of patients coming through the door is getting to levels that I haven’t seen for many years,” he said.

Queensland Premier Anastasia Palaszczuk has demanded further federal support before it commits to a border reopening, which the Prime Minister dubbed “shakedown politics” and “extortion” during a media blitz on Tuesday.

But Dr Parnis felt the federal government was “abdicating their responsibility”.

With Victoria today recording a national record of 1838 COVID cases in 24 hours, its health system is nearly at breaking point. Frontline worker Stephen Parnis explains how our health staff feel knowing the worst is yet to come.#TheProjectTVpic.twitter.com/YnuK4BOpOb

— The Project (@theprojecttv) October 8, 2021

“I found the line of shakedown politics from the Prime Minister absolutely offensive,” Dr Parnis said of Mr Morrison’s comments.

“I’ve been watching hospital funding for the best part of 20 years. I used to be an AMA leader. I have seen the argy-bargy between state and federal governments of both persuasions over a very long time.

“No amount of preparation could get you ready for this sort of scenario.

“When you have the federal government pushing to get the states to open up, with the often consequence that hospitals will be hit by increased numbers of patients, then I think they need to take some responsibility.

“If they continue to adopt this approach of no negotiation over a once in a century health crisis, then I think that they are abdicating their responsibility.”

Emergency physician Stephen Parnis on The Project.

Mr Morrison told 4BC’s Neil Breen on Tuesday that the federal government was “not going to respond to shakedowns in a pandemic”, in response to Ms Palaszczuk’s refusal to commit to a reopening road map.

“What we’ve done is we’ve showered the states in money, whether it’s in JobKeeper and economic support payments,” Mr Morrison told 4BC’s Neil Breen.

Health Minister Greg Hunt questioned whether Ms Palaszczuk’s refusal to open the border unless the federal government stumped up funds was “within the law and spirit” of public health orders.

He also blamed the state governments for the state of their health systems, declaring it their own “fundamental failure of duty and responsibility”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he wouldn’t respond to “shakedown politics”. Picture: Rohan Thomson/Getty Images

Qld Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has called on more funding from the federal government. Picture: Richard Walker

An emotional Dr Parnis, who at one stage during the interview broke down in tears, said the health care system was “already broken” before Covid hit in March 2020, and is now well and truly on its knees.

“In the provision of emergency care, we are trying to separate those who do have Covid or may have Covid from those who we think do not have Covid. And that means taking up parts of the hospital that we haven‘t used before, keeping them physically separate,” Dr Parnis began.

“It means that people are often sent to parts of the hospital that we would never use outside of the pandemic. And we’ve got people in jobs that they usually wouldn’t have as well.

“And that’s because we need all hands on deck and the scarcest resource at the moment is not the equipment, it’s the people because it takes years to train up medical and nursing experts.”