Page 2458 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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foster healthy lifestyles and which keep people out of hospitals in the longer term. On the more positive side, I am pleased to see that money is being made available to help stop smoking amongst our young people and amongst our economically and socially deprived, but overall health promotion is being cut. Community health and health promotion always seem to be the first to be cut, especially under a Labor Government which has absolutely no strategic approach to health. There is a direct contrast between what the Government says in its propaganda pamphlet on the budget and the reality of an 8 per cent cut. The pamphlet says that there are more health promotion funds, whereas in reality there is an 8 per cent cut on last year's expenditure. This is straight out deception.
Mr Connolly: Spend more. She wants us to spend more.
MRS CARNELL: No, I just want you to tell the truth in your brochures. There is also another deception - the statement that the 1992-93 budget develops Canberra as a centre for freight distribution and warehousing. We all know the truth. There is some money made available for researching the project, but that is all - a feasibility study. Canberra will not be like that at the end of 12 months. So, that is more evidence of government deceit. Taxpayers' money is squandered on a propaganda exercise.
Another propaganda exercise was completed by the Labor Government in July. Mr Berry said that Health had made a $246,000 surplus. Nothing could be further from the truth. The budget papers confirmed what we knew all along. The 1991-92 outcome shows that there was, in fact, overexpenditure to the tune of $10.6m. However you look at this, this is $10.6m worth of overexpenditure, explained under the guise of the so-called business rules. They are rules which allow the Government to get away with anything they want to. These rules do not assist accountability at all.
Madam Speaker, the health budget is remarkable for its absence of long-term strategy. The fifth floor has not provided any future direction for ACT Health.
Mr De Domenico: They provided a lot of leaks, though.
MRS CARNELL: That is right; there were a lot of leaks. They have not developed any plan at all. Instead, they are relying on the wing and a prayer approach. They are waiting for a Tattslotto win or some other revenue windfall just so that they can fund the promises they have made in this budget. Some of the new projects Mr Berry has announced will help his public relations, possibly, in the short term, particularly with the Labor Party Left - - -
Mr De Domenico: He needs it.
MRS CARNELL: He needs it. But there is no sense of priority in these announcements and there is also very little funding in the forward estimates. Until this Government can grasp the nettle that the Grants Commission poses, govern with a sense of vision, and adopt a problem solving approach with a long-term strategy, we will continue to face the severe problems in Health and elsewhere in the budget. We will continue to see our waiting lists grow and our service provision decrease.
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