Page 3716 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 9 December 1992
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system throughout this country. You cannot separate a meagre increase and say that it will go one way or another. It will go into the entire amount of money that is collected by way of the levy - it was a good decision to increase the levy - and it will provide better health services across Australia, as well as in the ACT.
MRS CARNELL: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Possibly this is a better way to ask the question: Does the Minister then admit that, if the extra $8m that ACT taxpayers will pay were distributed according to the current Medicare agreement, ACT Health would get $4m, not the $1m as in the new agreement, which means that we would be $3m better off? Is that simpler?
MR BERRY: What a foolish approach! What an inane approach! We are right now in the process of negotiating a new Medicare agreement - - -
Mr Kaine: But you have already signed it.
MR BERRY: You - I almost said "fools" - clumsy people; you do not even understand what is going on. You have to be told over and over again. I will tell you again. This Government has clearly indicated that it is committed to the principles of Medicare and that we intend to work towards the signing of a Medicare agreement from the middle of next year.
Mr Humphries: How about answering the question rather than giving us the platitudes, Wayne? I have heard it 100 times before. I am not interested any more.
MR BERRY: Well, you are going to hear it.
Mr Humphries: Yes, we sure are.
MR BERRY: That is right. We will be working towards the establishment of a new Medicare agreement. I have said over and over again - and these people opposite seem too thick to understand it - that a significant amount of negotiation needs to occur in relation to all the facets of Medicare. We intend to wring out of our negotiating process the best possible deal for the ACT. It will be done in an environment where the New South Wales Government and the Victorian Government and Mrs Carnell are on the band wagon, trying to undermine Medicare in the lead-up to the next election. If they take politics out of it and get back to good sense, we will be allowed to proceed down the path towards a better Medicare agreement. I do not trust Mrs Carnell's figures. When you extrapolate the figures, they just do not make any sense at all. I demonstrated yesterday in my answer to Mr Moore that the figures she has suggested are completely wrong.
Strategic Planning Study
MS SZUTY: My question without notice is to the Chief Minister. However, if the Chief Minister feels that this question is more appropriately addressed to another Minister, I will be happy for her to refer the question to the relevant Minister. On 20 August this year the Assembly passed a motion requiring the Government to inquire into and report on strategic planning in the ACT, addressing the key question: What should Canberra be like in the year 2020? One requirement of the motion was that the Government was to report to the Assembly on progress at the end of each quarter, the first reporting date being 30 November 1992. I ask the Chief Minister: Why has the Government not reported to the Assembly on the progress of the strategic plan, and when does it propose to do so?
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