John Brumby’s new ten-point health plan highlights Labor’s atrocious failure in the health sector and is neither new nor innovative, Shadow Minister for Health Helen Shardey said today.

This ten-point plan is a muddled rehash of old announcements and shows that John Brumby is reduced to begging for more money from Canberra to camouflage Labor’s ineptitude on health, Mrs Shardey said.

The truly desperate nature of Labor’s comprehensive reform proposal is illustrated by the call for the rolling out of an activity-based funding approach to hospitals across Australia when Victoria has had an activity-based funding approach in place for the last 15 years.

John Brumby’s plea for the Commonwealth to provide at least one Medicare-funded bulk- billing GP service in emergency departments for non-emergency patients is the third policy direction his government has taken on this issue.

The previous Coalition Federal Government and the current Labor Government were and are in support of co-located GP clinics in hospitals with very busy emergency departments.

And Labor proposed the establishment of super clinics in the last election to ease the burden on emergency departments.

John Brumby’s sudden realisation of the need to boost public subsidies and public provision of dental services, particularly for those most in need, reveals that Victorian Labor is opposed to the Federal decision to scrap the Medicare Dental Scheme which allowed such a subsidy in the first place.

Instead of arrogantly strutting the national stage, John Brumby should focus on helping sick Victorians get health care and fund desperately-needed hospital beds, Mrs Shardey said.