Page 4202 - Week 13 - Thursday, 25 November 1993
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has walked away and abdicated all of its responsibility. It has said to the 300,000 living here now, "It is all yours. We do not give a hoot how much it costs". The Commonwealth should be told and the case should be put to the Grants Commission that there remains a special case for consideration in terms of water supply, and the Government should be putting the case. Has it? The answer is no, it has not.
The same thing applies to our sewage processing. When the city was put here, it was known that there was going to be a problem getting rid of our sewage. We put in a big works. I can remember that in 1976-77 when the third stage of processing was put in we argued that it should not be charged to the ACT community, and the Commonwealth accepted that. It is a very costly processing stage to protect the people downstream. It was insisted upon by the Commonwealth and they initially accepted responsibility. They have walked away from that in recent years. Why is this Government not putting to the Grants Commission a special case that the Commonwealth should accept its responsibilities in these matters?
Those are just two matters that I can think of. If the Chief Minister and Treasurer is concerned about the Grants Commission recommending further reductions, then let us put a substantial case to the Grants Commission to combat that. If we do not put the case, we cannot argue when we get the result. There are things that the Government can and should be doing. I do not see them doing those things, and I think that they will become accountable for failing to meet these requirements in the future.
I have only one other brief comment. Some essential priorities are missing from this budget. You only have to look around this city. You hear the Government talking platitudes about social justice, but where in the budget is the substantial provision for homeless youth or unemployed youth? Where is the provision for the disabled and the disadvantaged? Where is the provision for the increasing aged sector of this community - accommodation facilities for dementia patients, convalescent care and the like? There is absolutely nothing in the budget. We go year after year and the Government talks about it, but in practical terms it makes no provision. It is about time they started to accept the responsibility for these things and started to build it in very explicitly with some specific programs and specific targets in mind. They have not done it this year; they did not do it last year; they did not do it the year before; and unless we ginger them up a bit they will not do it next year either.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (5.26): Madam Speaker, I would like to respond very briefly to a few of the points that Mr Kaine has made. He cheated with the figures.
Mr Kaine: Are you going to tell us about the Alliance Government now? Let us have a look at your performance.
MR BERRY: No, I am going to say that you cheated with the figures and tried to create a false impression. There is only one example that I need to quote to blow all that Mr Kaine said out of the water, because it was a whole load of rubbish based on his assessment of things. If you have a look at page 344 of Budget Paper No. 3, you will see that the total health appropriations for 1992-93 were $263m.
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