Page 1070 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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There is a very strong community argument which, while I see both sides of the argument, I support. I have always supported the argument that Acton Peninsula is one of the most beautiful sites in Canberra, one of the greatest assets this community has. For people who require hospice treatment, there could be no more beautiful and peaceful setting for those last weeks of life than that beautiful peninsula. There is an argument - which seems to me, from the advice I have, to have some adherents on either side among health professionals - as to whether you should have a hospice adjacent to or not adjacent to an intensive care hospital. Mrs Carnell favours one side of that argument and the Government favours the other. I have always favoured what Mr Berry did on that. I have always favoured that position. I have always supported that position.
We had some frustrations from the planning authorities. I hope that we have got those over and done with. I am sure that in years to come that hospice on Acton Peninsula will be seen as a very visionary move. The rhetoric here was that nobody supports the Government. That is nonsense. There is very strong support for that. There is a divide. The matter has been debated here on many occasions. My recollection - and I have discussed it briefly with Mr Berry - is that this Assembly seems to support putting the hospice on the Acton Peninsula. The views of Independent members are that it is an appropriate use of the site. Sure, Mrs Carnell takes a different view. There are some supporters of her view.
Calvary Hospital would no doubt do a very good job if they had the hospice, but so will the palliative care service or a community based group who may run the service on the Acton Peninsula. The physical beauty of the Acton Peninsula site is something that nobody can contradict. That was the only concrete issue that the Liberals could come up with on where you could save a bit of money, and it is an issue where there is a very strong argument on either side. At the end of the day the amounts of money they are talking about are fairly marginal.
The Liberals said - shock, horror! - that we are consistently expending above the Australian average expenditure on health. Indeed, we are, and that is a challenge that this Government will have to face. The levels of overexpenditure in terms of Grants Commission ratings of overexpenditure over the past few years have shown consistent moves in the right direction. Certainly, our budget is still over the national average, which is a matter of some concern, although in some areas it is appropriately over the national average. It is a bit like the policing argument. We are still overexpending, in terms of the national average, on policing expenditure. There is no great problem with that. We get a better service. The ACT community probably would take the view, quite properly, that it wants a better service and the level of overexpenditure. We are getting the overexpenditure down.
"Shock, horror!", said Mrs Carnell, "You have had blow-outs of $5m, $9m, $10m over recent years". It is certainly my goal to get a budget that we can hold to, but I do not expect that in the six weeks to the end of the budget process - I think the $5m is the published figure to the end of the December quarter - one can wave the magic wand and turn that around. Even so, our performance compares quite favourably with overexpenditures while the Liberals were in office, and at least we are able to say to this Assembly on a quarterly basis, "This is our level of overexpenditure".
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