Page 3953 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 29 November 2022
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backward in coming forward to express his anger and frustration at this government’s handling of the health portfolio. Mr Daniel has led protests outside the Assembly for better pay and conditions for nurses and midwives. Speaking recently about the government’s plan to address worker fatigue he has dismissed it as a bandaid solution. We later learnt the union had quit its membership of the health minister’s cultural reform oversight group, with Mr Daniel saying there was a lack of urgency or an inability to achieve real change in culture through this body.
The former director of paediatrics at the Canberra Hospital, Professor Graham Reynolds, last month described the culture at Canberra Hospital as characterised by poor rostering, double shifts and covering illness without proper relief provisions, which amounts to administrative bullying. Former Labor Chief Minister Jon Stanhope and ex-treasury official Dr Khalid Ahmed have on several occasions described health care in Canberra as in crisis. The two analysts added, “We have ascribed the central cause of that crisis to ongoing and persistent cuts to health funding.”
Of course, we cannot forget the nurses and midwives who have spoken out about horrendous conditions at the Canberra Hospital: patients being left in corridors, staff having no time for toilet breaks, bullying, countless culture reviews yet no meaningful action taken, and a persistent lack of support. In one Canberra Times article about staffing shortages, nurses said the hospital is blaming COVID but this was an issue many years before COVID and once it hit there has been a blanket response to say the issues are due to COVID but they are absolutely not.
This is important to note because, as usual, I expect the government will dismiss this notice of motion and move amendments along the lines of “There is nothing to see here” and “All is well.” Clearly, all is not well in Canberra’s struggling health system and the situation is going from bad to worse.
Government underfunding, let us talk about that. I think it is important to be crystal clear about the real reason the health system is on its knees and it is due to the fact that this Labor-Greens government has been underfunding healthcare in the Territory for years! The data that I have set out in my notice of motion today comes from the 2012-2013 budget through to the 2018-19 ACT budget papers 3, looking at specific purpose payments and national partnership payments. These are pages 270 and 278. The commonwealth’s compounding annual growth during this period was 9.2 per cent per year over the 2012 to 2019 period for SPP and NPP funding. By contrast, over the same period, the ACT government’s compounding annual growth rate for health was 3.3 per cent, excluding the commonwealth contributions. This information comes from budget pages 366 and 330 from ACT budget statements C, 2012-13 and 2018-19.
However, my analysis does not stop there. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare released data on hospital expenditure for each of the states and territories. Over the same period, the ACT government funded our hospital services at a compounding annual growth rate of 2 per cent. The federal government figure was at 14 per cent. The ABS data for health services inflation between 2012-13 and 2018-19 had a compounding annual growth rate of 4.3 per cent per year.
The Chief Minister is also this territory’s Treasurer and these figures show that he has failed to properly fund our health system in line with increases to health costs and
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