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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4100 ..

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, let us get to the health budget for a little while.

Mr De Domenico: Yes, let us do that.

MR SPEAKER: Yes, let us address the health budget.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell attempts to sing its praises. In her response to the Estimates Committee report she goes on to say:

The Government rejects the view that problems with the Health budget "have been probably the single biggest factor leading to the sale of Government assets".

She offers no justification for that claim, because they cannot. The fact of the matter is that the $22.3m which has been overspent in health is the single greatest cause of many of our problems in the Territory's budget. It has, of course, been one of the elements which have led to asset sales to fund the problems in the health system.

One of the reasons why the $22.3m ended up as it did was Jindalee. Mrs Carnell originally intended to get $2m for that, according to her budget strategy in 1994, but in the end she almost gave it away. That is one of the reasons why the Territory is in trouble. It is just plain mismanagement. This health budget is something like $37m more than was estimated for the 1996-97 estimates. The 1996-97 estimates, at page 116, stand at $283,781,000, and the 1996-97 budget is $322,401,000 - a difference of about $37m. We know now that the incompetence which has resulted in this health budget blow-out has been built into future budgets.

Mrs Carnell: You blew out four budgets in four years.

Mr De Domenico: You got the quadrella, mate.

MR BERRY: That is not quite true.

Mrs Carnell: Four budgets; four years; 200 fewer beds; doubled waiting lists.

MR BERRY: That is not true. After Gary Humphries's massive blow-out whilst he was Minister, Labor gradually pulled the health budget back under control, and the books balanced before we left office.

MR SPEAKER: Relevance, Mr Berry.

MR BERRY: The only person who has done worse than Gary Humphries in budget management has been Kate Carnell. Mr Speaker, we have this massive budget problem in health now. She is just throwing money at the health black hole. She cannot deal with any of the savings problems which need to be dealt with within the health system.

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