Ahead of the 2018 state election, Victorian Health Minister Jill Hennessy claimed that when the Coalition was last in office, it cut $1 billion from the health system. Is she correct? RMIT ABC Fact Check found Ms Hennessy is wrong. Under the Coalition, health spending grew from $7.4 billion in 2009-10 to $8.7 billion in 2014-15. The average annual increase over the five years was $264 million, while the cumulative extra spending over the period was $4.1 billion. These figures factor in the effects of inflation in the health sector and refer to spending on both recurrent health services and one-off capital expenditure in the health portfolio. They also show health spending grew faster than population growth. Ms Hennessy's office provided Fact Check with figures summarising the projected effects of savings measures announced by the Coalition. But these numbers, drawn from the state budget papers, do not show what was actually spent. And while Labor's figures illustrate Coalition efforts to reduce expenditure in some areas of the health portfolio, they do not acknowledge new spending measures announced at the same time.
Verdict: Wrong