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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1808 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

cannot access the services they need to enjoy the quality of life they deserve. It is paid for by the small businesses whose payroll tax payments made up for the stamp duty waivers that the big end of town received as part of the business incentive program. It is paid for by the ratepayers who funded the Bruce Stadium redevelopment and the legal fees and court costs of the bungled hospital implosion. It is funded by Canberrans when they pay a fee to go to Floriade-a fee set by this caring, sharing government that is so committed to building social capital and encouraging a positive sense of belonging.

There is a peculiar line in this year's budget papers that has already caused the government a good deal of disquiet and led to a very entertaining display of fancy footwork. It is the unallocated funds provision in the Health and Community Care portfolio. The 2000-01 budget includes a provision for $7.657 million in expenditure on unallocated growth needs, growing to a total of $58 million over four years. The nature of the unallocated growth needs is not defined, although a number of programs are list for separate funding. It is not a new item. The growth needs provision was a feature that the minister made much of on the release of the draft budget. He has made more than much of it in the last week; he has truly made a meal of it.

A feature of this year's budget process has been the zealous work of the government's PR machine. The steady drip-feed of budget information has been a highlight of the city's media over the past couple of weeks. On Monday, for instance, we read in the Canberra Times that there would be an injection of $62 million in new health cash in the budget. Intriguingly, the Times reported that the bulk of the new funds was for use at the minister's discretion. "This money gives me the wherewithal to implement the changes I have as my goals," the minister told the Times. The Times repeated the suggestion when it reported the Treasurer's delivery of the budget. More than half the additional funds for health were "for use at the minister's discretion".

After that report, the minister and the Treasurer engaged in a touch of the old-fashioned mazurka. The Treasurer discovered a new scientific phenomenon: "What you say down the microphone and what comes out at the other end sometimes sounds very different," he told ABC radio. A little later, the minister had no discretion: everything had to be approved by cabinet and the Assembly, the Treasurer told us. The minister said nothing was unallocated; it would all be disclosed through purchase agreements.

The fact remains that these funds are referred to as unallocated. It is all very well to say that the money will be spent on an identified program-so-called growth needs-but in question time the Treasurer conceded there could be any number of emerging growth needs to which the money could be allocated. perhaps a flu epidemic or a bout of bronchitis. That is not the way to frame a budget. It simply smacks of an alarming lack of strategic planning.

This is the government that cannot find a way to spend $7.6 million. This is a government that cannot identify any health need deserving of these available funds. Yet elective surgery waiting lists in our public hospitals are in the order of 4,500, basically what they have been for the last five years, despite the government having access for more than two years to $16 million of bonus Commonwealth funding specifically directed at cutting the waiting lists: $16 million over two years. There has been no impact on the waiting lists; waiting times have blown out. More than 35 per cent of

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