Page 2727 - Week 09 - Thursday, 25 August 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Proposed expenditure - Division 240 - Non-Government schooling, $59,368,500 - agreed to.
Proposed expenditure - Division 250 - Training, $3,673,600 - agreed to.
Department of Health
Proposed expenditure - Division 260 - Health, $271,808,300
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (4.23): Madam Speaker, I think that one of the things that we have all noted, as did Mr Connolly in his press release when this budget was bought down, is that in recurrent terms this is $14m more than the published forward estimate for Health. In fact, if you add in capital, it is $16.7m more than was initially forecast for this year. That is a huge increase at a time when the ACT budget is being cut back because of Federal Government cutbacks. Mr Connolly has gone on to suggest that somehow this is going to achieve a stabilisation in Health, that it is going to achieve all sorts of things; but, as the Estimates Committee said, there is really no indication of how this is going to be achieved.
I was very disappointed to see the Government's responses to the Estimates Committee report in the health area. Basically, they were one-liners all the way through - one-liners to recommendations that were thought out and were subject to a very large amount of debate. There were responses such as:
The Committee will be advised of expenditure reductions through Budget Papers and Program Explanatory Notes each financial year.
What the Estimates Committee said is that we were not happy with those explanations. They were impossible to fathom and equally impossible for anybody to understand. Yet we have those sorts of glib responses. I do not think that is acceptable.
I was fairly disappointed, as, I am sure, was Ms Szuty, with the response about the adolescent ward. Again it was a glib response that a comprehensive strategy will be worked out at some time in the future. Last year the Assembly passed a motion saying that we wanted an adolescent unit at Woden Valley Hospital. Now, in response to a recommendation from the Estimates Committee, we are told about a comprehensive strategy for adolescent health. That is something that we would all support; but this Assembly believed that the adolescent ward was separate from that, and it should be on the books now. That is what this Assembly asked for and it is certainly not what we have seen here. In fact, it is said:
This will allow all adolescent health needs to be properly addressed in 1995.
It does not say what those needs will be. An adolescent ward is not mentioned in the Government response, and it certainly gives no timeframes.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .