Premiers and chief ministers talked turkey on Wednesday morning as crunch time approaches on negotiations with Canberra on a new five-year public hospital funding deal.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler promised to cover 42.5 per cent of public hospital running costs by 2030 and 45 per cent by 2035, in a deal struck in late 2023.
At Wednesday's meeting, state and territory leaders agreed the pledge must be honoured.
Labor NSW Premier Chris Minns said the share of federal funding would be closer to 37 per cent under the Albanese Labor government's latest offer, calling it a "massive decline".Â
"Right across Australia, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the Northern Territory, different states, different political parties run those states," he told reporters.
"We can't all be wrong.
"It seems to me that the federal government is implying that all of the states have got it all wrong at exactly the same time."
States cannot cut public hospital activity to suit the federal government's bottom line, Tasmanian Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff said.
Victorian counterpart Jacinta Allan struck a slightly more conciliatory tone, declaring negotiations had been "robust" but "constructive".
She said states and territories were "so up and about" on the topic due to "huge pressure" on their health and hospital systems.
"We have been working incredibly hard but without the support that's been needed," the Victorian Labor leader said.
There are 1100 elderly people in NSW hospitals who should be discharged but have nowhere to go, Mr Minns said.
"The federal government's got a lot of far deeper pockets than the states do," he said.
"But we're responsible for service delivery, and we need a new deal because what's been offered here is just not good enough."
The federal government is pushing to reach an agreement before the end of 2025.
States have been offered an extra $20 billion across five years, $7 billion more than the offer the federal government made in 2023, a health department spokesperson said.
"This would bring Australian government funding under the national health reform agreement to record levels - $215 billion over five years," they said.
The feuding comes as a Grattan Institute report highlighted that realistic budgets, funding reform and better system management could pay for an extra 160,000 hospital visits each year.
The study warned the country's approach to funding hospitals was "broken" due to "bogus budgets", with Australian governments wasting $1.2 billion a year on avoidable spending.
It found while public hospital spending had increased by 50 per cent in the past decade, hospitals remained under the strains of ambulance ramping, extensive surgery wait times and widespread staff burnout.
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