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NSW Health Minister Ryan Park says he won’t be able to attend an important meeting with his state and territory counterparts, which could cost the state “billions of dollars”, because of the opposition’s actions.
State and territory health ministers will meet at 6pm on Thursday, ahead of a joint meeting with their federal counterpart Mark Butler to discuss National Health Reform Agreement on Friday morning.
The deal will give billions of dollars in federal funding for the state’s public hospitals, with NSW set to negotiated a larger share.
However as NSW parliament will be sitting until about 5.45pm, Mr Park says he won’t be able to attend unless the Opposition agrees to have one of its MPs sit out any vote.
In a furious spray delivered in parliament on Wednesday, Mr Park said the decision could cost the state billions.
“Despite feigning as though they’re on team NSW, this lot over there has prevented me from going down and engaging in those discussions,” he said.
“Discussions that will cost potentially cost this state billions of dollars.
“I don’t want to hear anything more about fighting, or standing up for NSW. The only people who are standing up for the people of NSW is the Minns Labor government.”
It’s understood the NSW Opposition has denied two requests for Mr Park to be given a pair.
The system, means that if an MP is unable to be present in the house while voting on a motion, a member from the opposition will also be absent.
However, an Opposition spokesman has fired back, accusing the government of “treating the NSW parliament and voters with contempt”.
They say Opposition Whip Adam Crouch was only informed of a meeting on Friday day, and had no knowledge of the event on Thursday night.
“The Minns government has set a bare minimum sitting schedule because they lack any plans or vision for NSW,” they said.
“They seem to think that it’s not even important to attend, suggesting the Health Minister should be excused from parliament on Thursday so that he could attend a Canberra meeting on Friday.
“There are flights from Sydney to Canberra on Thursday evening or early Friday morning that would allow the minister to attend his Friday meeting, without neglecting his work in parliament.”
A NSW government spokesperson said it was “critical” for the minister to attend the meeting, especially in light of NSW’s fight to reform GST revenue so the state receives more in federal funding.
“As the NSW health system faces unprecedented demand, the NSW government and Health Minister Ryan Park are fighting to ensure our health system has the resources it needs to deliver quality healthcare for all residents,” they said.
“For a week in parliament the Opposition have feigned concern about the impact of GST cuts on essential NSW services, now they’re getting in the way of the Health Minister raising these concerns in Canberra.
“It is absurd that the opposition would actively stand in the way to stop NSW from advocating for more health funding.”
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