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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1281 ..
MR MOORE: I ask a supplementary question. Minister, in that case I believe it is appropriate for this Assembly to take it that you are quite satisfied that education funding is fine when there are not enough basic textbooks on basic subjects to go around. Are you satisfied with that or not?
MR STEFANIAK: Mr Moore, I think we would all like to see a lot more money in a lot of our areas. That certainly applies to education. I hark back to my initial point: This Government, in difficult economic times, has maintained education funding in real terms. This year, in fact, it has increased it more than that. In real terms there has been only a 1.75 per cent increase. In fact, we are around about 3 per cent. I would like to be able to have some extra money for a number of other educational initiatives, and I would suspect that that is always going to be the case; but I do not think you can get away from the fact that this Government has made a considerable effort in terms of funding for education. That is exemplified, especially, in our last budget.
MR BERRY: My question is directed to the Chief Minister in her capacity as Minister for Health. I would ask the Chief Minister to consider her answer against the background of the answer she just gave to my colleague Mr Corbell in which she denied a hasty signing of a contract to pre-empt the Assembly's consideration of the proposed private hospital and she denied that her actions were a blatant contempt of this Assembly. My question to Mrs Carnell is this: How do you explain this letter to the residents of Garran, signed off on 6 May and delivered to residents the day after the signing? I will quote from the letter and paraphrase some of it, but I will table it in due course. This is a letter to "the resident" by the chief executive of the Canberra Hospital, and bear in mind it was signed on the 6th. It states:
As announced by the ACT Government, it is proposed to develop a private hospital on The Canberra Hospital campus.
The ACT Government is now negotiating -
I emphasise that -
with Health Care of Australia to develop and operate the private hospital. Building of the new hospital is planned to commence in June 1997, and will consist of about 100 beds, a number of day procedure areas -
and so on. On the reverse side is a little picture of the proposed hospital which is being negotiated. "Car parking and traffic issues are generally areas of concern for residents", the letter says, and it goes on about that. It talks about the good communication that was maintained throughout the recent development of the Canberra Hospital. It then goes on to say:
At this stage if you have any concerns or questions please contact ...
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