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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 982 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

We were accused of not bringing forward taxation issues. Do you know what the draft budget says about general rates? It says, "We have not done it yet. We cannot give you information on that". I think that is a reasonable position for the Treasury people to be in, if they were to have their Christmas break, which quite obviously they did. I repeat the claim that this draft budget is not a function of a complete budget round and analysis. It is a fairly hastily cobbled document, and from what I am hearing from the Treasurer in his response to the reports that have come down, I am starting to get the sense that it is all part of a script. I am sure that I will hear some positive things about at least one or two committees during the process, to give balance. But the outcome of the process is as I predicted publicly some months ago.

I commend this report to the Government and thank the other two members of the committee who worked with me, including Mr Cornwell, who agrees, to the point that his duties precluded him from being able to get inside the detail of the draft budget to the degree that is required, as is now obvious from the debate by Mr Moore over this figure and that figure. The draft budget says that we are going to match national standards. That is not a really very high aim to hold for our hospital system.

Mr Moore: We will always be higher than national standard. We will always be higher than even national costs.

MR QUINLAN: I only have the documents to go by, and they clearly communicate that we are going to cut costs in hospitals, in acute care, on the basis of national averages. I would like to close this debate by commending the report and commending the work that has been done by so few. As I expected, the report will be tossed out the back and chewed up. I guess that is just part of the script.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health and Community Care): I wish to make a personal explanation under standing order 47. I believe part of my speech was misunderstood and misquoted when Mr Quinlan suggested that the hospital was going to be brought to national standard and cut. I said in my speech that Mr Quinlan had suggested in January that the draft budget indicated that the funding for hospitals and acute care was to be reduced by $25m over four years. He has repeated that. I had just finished telling him that that is just not the case; that it is another mistake. That is where he has misunderstood me and misquoted me.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MR WOOD (4.46): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, pursuant to order, I present the following report:

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