New $750 million cancer centre to be built in Brisbane but will a tax hike help pay for it?
The Palaszczuk Government says it will spend $750 million in a new comprehensive cancer centre in Brisbane to treat patients and take pressure off crowded hospitals in what is understood to be an Australian first.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Monday announced the funding for a new Queensland Cancer Centre at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.
Palaszczuk said the facility would bring together cancer therapies for the 20,000 Queenslanders diagnosed every year.
“Some of these cases and people have very complex issues, and to have a state of the art facility under one roof … this is exactly what Queensland needs,” she told reporters.
Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said the centre wiould have 150 beds and free up a further 59 in the hospital system, which should ease pressure on emergency departments.
She said the number of Queenslanders diagnosed with cancer every year is expected to rise by almost 10,000 to about 30,000 by 2036.
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“We have a responsibility to do everything we can to provide the highest quality care and treatment for people who are diagnosed with cancer,” D’Ath said.
“It will deliver a chemotherapy service, outpatient consult rooms, multiple operating theatres, and a pathology and pharmacy service.
“It will also include a full range of research, education and training facilities which will support continued and strengthened partnerships with the University of Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.”
The government expects construction work on the centre to start in 2024, and be completed in 2028.
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Treasurer Cameron Dick promised funding for frontline health care would not be cut in June 21’s budget, amid mounting pressure from COVID-19 and influenza outbreaks.
Included in other measures to be included in next week’s State Budget is a promise to cut $44 from household electricity bills this year with a one-off rebate costing $385 million.
Another $200 million will go into a fund for new roads, sewerage systems and other infrastructure in the southeast of the state to spur new housing developments.
Public high school students are to have access to free period products, while $72 million will go towards a new aeromedical hub at Brisbane Airport.
All up, Dick said he expects to spend about $1.5 billion more than the government earns in his 2022/23 budget.
That is about $900 million lower than the deficit he forecast six months ago, partly due to rising taxes on coalminers and gambling firms.
The government is also expected to start pocketing interest earnings from tenants’ rental bonds from July 1.
The treasurer promised not to hike any taxes, fees or charges at the 2020 election, but now insists that pledge was made to families, not businesses.
“We didn’t make a promise to big corporations, whether they be in Queensland or national or multinational,” Mr Dick told reporters on Monday.
“We didn’t make a promise to them. We didn’t make a promise to big coal corporations. We didn’t make a promise to big offshore-based online betting companies.
“Those companies have made billions of dollars since we made that promise, billions and billions, and it’s about time Queenslanders got their share of that in the future.”
