The Victorian Greens say revelations of massive deficits across Victoria’s hospitals, alongside explosive reports that Labor gutted the state’s mental health watchdog, reveal a public health system being starved of the funding it needs.
Major health services are facing serious financial pressure, while leaked documents reveal the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission had its budget, staff and oversight powers slashed – undermining key reforms recommended by the Mental Health Royal Commission.
The revelations come just days after Victorian doctors walked off the job over unsafe workloads, exhaustion and unpaid overtime.
The Greens will properly fund public services by making big banks, gambling companies and corporations pay their fair share, while expanding community health and free mental health care and delivering the Royal Commission reforms Labor has abandoned.
As stated by Victorian Greens health spokesperson Dr Sarah Mansfield:
“Labor has run Victoria’s health system into the ground. Hospitals are struggling financially, healthcare workers are exhausted, and our mental health system is in crisis.
“Now we know Labor didn’t just fail to deliver the Mental Health Royal Commission reforms – it gutted the independent watchdog whose job was to expose that failure. It’s further evidence they were never genuinely committed to reform.
“This is what more than a decade of Labor looks like: starving essential public services while billions disappear into cost blowouts, corruption, and corporate handouts.
“In a state as wealthy as Victoria, safe, quality public healthcare shouldn’t be a luxury. Patients and healthcare workers deserve so much better.
“The Victorian Greens will properly fund public healthcare, rebuild community and mental health services and deliver the Royal Commission reforms Victorians were promised.”
