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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2367 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

year and $1 million for each of the outyears. That has been cut to $600,000. It is a start. It is a step in the right direction for a step-down facility, but the government will need to do more, because we will continue to have ward closures and pressure on accident and emergency services unless this sort of facility is built and staffed correctly. It will take out of the acute system people who do not need to be there. This facility is not just for older people. It is for young people who have no-one to care for them when they go home. It might be for somebody with a particular disability, but it will service all of the community. It is a good start but, Chief Minister, you need to do better.

This brings me to a very important part in the health budget. Over the last three years the Liberal government increased health funding by 20 per cent, a substantial increase. Our average was 6.67 per cent. You have to compare like with like, not apples with oranges. The budget claims that this year there is a 11 per cent increase. That is $245 million over $220 million. I suspect somebody forgot to move the injection for operating requirements up, which means that the estimated outcome for this year is perhaps $231 million. The Treasurer has done a good thing here. I give him a pat on the back. He has moved the injection for operating requirements into user charges, ACT government, which I think is an appropriate thing to do because it will lead to less confusion and give a truer picture.

But the truer picture of health funding in the outyears is appalling. This Health Minister claims to have put $36 million extra into health because of unmet demand but then walks away from it. The increase in health funding next year is half of 1 per cent. I do not know of any year when the health budget has grown by so little. I do not know of any year in which it was not increased by at least CPI. Half of 1 per cent is not even a CPI increase.

The year 2004-05 sees the health budget going up 1.7 per cent and the year 2005-06 sees it going up 2 per cent, well below inflation. Over the three years, Labor's increase is 9.2 per cent. That is not even half the amount by which we increased the health budget over three years, at an average increase of 3 per cent.

The other irony is clawback. Clawback is where the right hand gives and the left takes back. If you look at all of the documents in the appropriations, you will see that the government always take it back. It has been lauded much that they have given all this extra money to the system, and we are seeing it in all the other areas as well, but on page 152 of Budget Paper No 4 we see that this year they are giving an extra $8.7 million funding for pressures at the Canberra Hospital and they are taking $1.6 million back. Next year they will give $6 million and take $2.4 million back. More than a third of the money given for pressures at the Canberra Hospital is removed. I this case the Treasurer giveth and the Treasurer taketh away. One must question whether the government have broken another promise. They promised to give extra money but then they have taken it away by sleight of hand. So there are concerns with the health budget.

Much of what has been achieved in this budget has been achieved because the government is riding on our coat-tails. In the entire budget we see no strategic vision, no plan, no attempt to cope with the future. If this is the best you can do when Canberra is in good times, it does not bode well for the future, Mr Quinlan. You said that we were coming off a peak, but there is no plan to bolster the economic growth of the ACT for the future.

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