The federal health minister, Greg Hunt, has called on the Queensland government to explain how linking the reopening of its borders to hospital funding is “within the law and spirit” of public health orders.
Hunt’s questioning of Queensland’s border ban on Tuesday marks a significant escalation in hostilities between Canberra and the states over hospital funding.
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has rejected commonwealth claims she is engaged in “shakedown politics”, noting all states and territories have sought extra cash.
Last Thursday state and territory health ministers wrote to Hunt demanding the Morrison government provide an immediate funding boost to help them manage the “unrelenting strain” on health and hospital systems because of the pandemic.
The states are concerned that regular funding has not kept up with increased costs “due to additional infection control procedures, PCR testing, maintenance of bed capacity during fluctuating demand, and capacity to respond to surges in Covid-19 cases”.
They also called for the existing 50-50 cost-sharing of Covid health costs between the commonwealth and the states and territories to be extended “until at least the end of 30 June 2023”.
Hunt told reporters in Canberra that cost-sharing for Covid expenses was “already in place” and “ongoing” with $6.3bn paid out by the commonwealth so far.
Responding to Palaszczuk linking the issue to reopening her state’s international border on Friday, Hunt accused Queensland of “something of a diversion” and claimed commonwealth funding to Queensland hospitals had increased by 99% while state funding had only gone up 55%.
Hunt said that, based on advice from states and territories, the commonwealth believed all hospital systems had “prepared for a surge” of Covid-19 cases and the Queensland government had previously said its system was prepared.
“If they have misled the public, that would be a matter of the most serious and grave concern,” the federal minister said.
Hunt said Queensland had “got themselves in a pickle” by trying to seek more money and using that demand “as a basis for closing borders”.
Hunt accused the Queensland government of “keeping family and friends from each other”, preventing parents reuniting with the children and Queenslanders returning to their own state “unless Queensland got more money”.
Hunt said this amounted to the “most profound and grave use of border closure for a monetary reason”. “I would ask them to explain whether that is within the law and spirit of public health orders.”
“Border measures can only be about health, they can never be about money,” he said. “Depriving people of liberty, freedom of movement for reasons of a money grab is extraordinary.”
Palaszczuk said on Friday that international travel would resume when it was safe to do so. It would depend on achieving “high rates of vaccination” – including a plan to vaccinate children – and improved hospital capacity, she said.
“That means a big injection of funds from the federal government into the states to make sure that the hospitals will be able to cope with the growth in cases that will happen.”
On Tuesday, Palaszczuk defended her comments, noting that hospital capacity was one of several factors she had cited to determine if reopening was safe and arguing “it would be negligent if I wasn’t looking at all of those issues”.
“We need to look at making sure our hospitals are ready – national cabinet is looking at capacity right across the nation,” she told reporters in Brisbane.
The Queensland health minister, Yvette D’Ath, said that every single state and territory minister had warned extensive pressure and demand required “a rethink of the funding model going forward”.
“This is a national conversation not a fight between the commonwealth and Queesnland,” D’Ath said.
Palaszczuk noted that the federal health department secretary, Prof Brendan Murphy, had conceded that 600 people in hospitals should be moved to aged care or other services because they had complex disabilities and that would “free up some bed capacity”.
The ACT chief minister, Andrew Barr, on Monday called on the incoming New South Wales premier, Dominic Perrottet, to lead the push for an injection of federal funds to hospitals.
Barr said he still believed the door was open for an agreement, despite the prime minister’s description of the push as a “shakedown”, which Barr labelled not “particularly helpful”.
Later, at the press conference alongside Hunt, Murphy rejected Barr’s claims leaders had been given short notice of a paper about health system capacity, noting it had been to national cabinet three times.
Murphy said the paper, based on Doherty Institute modelling about infection rates, suggested the hospital system could “cope with predicted demand” although ongoing health measures would be needed, especially between the 70% and 80% vaccination rates.
Murphy said that he would “favour a transparent approach” to the release of the document but it was up to national cabinet.
