Page 2071 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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Mr Connolly: You know that that is not correct.
MRS CARNELL: That is correct, Mr Connolly. The Government says that it is "implementing cost-efficiency strategies", but, clearly, spending more for no improvement in service means less efficiency. Throw more money at a system for no return. That is a Rosemary Follett budget through and through. More and more Canberrans will experience longer waiting lists for elective surgery because of the Government's failure to concentrate spending directly on the need to reduce waiting lists. Thank goodness the Commonwealth Government is giving us some money for that. The budget does not fund one extra patient into our public hospital system in the coming year. The admission numbers will be kept the same as last year, even though the population is increasing and ageing. There is no way that the Government can spin that outcome as an improvement in health services. Budget Paper No. 2, page 44, tells us that health services in the ACT have an unfunded gap of $45m and that a major effort is needed "to reform the high cost structure of Woden Valley Hospital to enable resources to be directed to improved quality in health and other services". There can be no question that several million dollars can be saved in the cost of health services while at the same time improving quality, but the Government is not capable of making the reforms.
Turning to another area of reform, there are huge opportunities for reducing costs and improving services in public transport, but the Government does not have the inclination or the courage to make the necessary reforms. ACTION's own benchmarking study identified an annual saving of $38m. These savings could be achieved with genuine contestability in the provision of transport services, but this Government is mesmerised by its ideology. It would prefer to forgo $38m rather than break with its outmoded fixation on total public ownership and operation. This Labor Government should justify to the people of Canberra why it prefers to waste $38m in maintaining its ideological commitment to public ownership of buses rather than use the $38m for community health services, child-care, the aged, the genuine and deserving, those people who need help.
The budget shows that the Government's priorities are not only wrong but also perverse. The Chief Minister talks about social justice but deprives those most in need by denying those very services to people who need them. She locks up scarce resources in inefficient work processes and special deals for her political supporters, so the poor and the needy go without. Poor productivity in providing services has a very clear outcome: There are fewer services; their quality is reduced; the cost is higher; and those who most need them are usually the ones who miss out. That is why I say that the Government's approach is perverse.
The Chief Minister can find $30,000 for legal fees to defend one of her Ministers, but the Council on the Ageing is not worth helping to the same extent - not even nearly to the same extent. Social justice takes on a new meaning under this Government. It means less for everyone, and much less for those without influence in the Labor Party. There is a better way, a way which provides real social justice for those most in need by being more responsive and efficient; a way which cares about people; a way which encourages innovation and rewards excellence; a way which lowers the cost of services and brings wider choice. This way starts with correcting the causes of inefficiency and
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