Media Release

Peter Gutwein MP
Shadow Treasurer

Friday 15th January 2010

Giddings must explain her bizarre financial logic

It seems that the Health Minister, Lara Giddings, is setting new records for spending the same money more than once.

This week Lara Giddings announced she wanted to buy back the Burnie Hospital. When talking about the purchase on ABC Radio she said:

Currently we spend around about $5 million on rent each year. So what we will be doing is using that rental to pay for the infrastructure.

So the Minister wants to use the rental money to pay for the infrastructure. However, she also said:

…we will (be) paying Treasury back in use of those rental amounts that we have been using.

So the Minister has also committed to using the same $5 million to pay back Treasury. To make it more confusing, she also said:

It makes sense in terms of investing in public services on the North-West Coast to actually purchase that building and put the money that we used to put out on lease – on our rental – back into health services on the North-West Coast.

So the Minister also wants to use the same $5 million per year to spend on services.

Sadly, the Health Minister doesn’t realise that you can’t spend the same dollar three times in three different ways.

No wonder Lara Giddings has said she doesn’t want to be Health Minister anymore. It’s all too confusing for her.

If she buys the Burnie Hospital with money borrowed from Treasury it could take up to a decade for the Health Department to pay the money back.

Lara Giddings needs to answer some basic questions: how much will the purchase cost? How much will the Health Department borrow and what are the borrowing costs and how long will it take to pay back the money?