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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 3912 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

now-and I will say it again-that I do not regard elective surgery and the waiting list consequent to elective surgery as the No 1 priority in health care delivery. It is not the No 1 priority. We acknowledge that, and we have responded to that.

It is one of the few quantitative measures we can use in measuring performance of a health system. It is all about numbers. It is therefore very easy. It is simple. That is what Mr Smyth needs in relation to health and his understanding of health. He needs something that is easy, he needs something that is simple. He does not have the capacity or the energy to do anything about the tough issues. That is why the previous government-Gary Humphries, Brendan Smyth and the others opposite who constituted the previous government-underfunded mental health, for instance, with 17 per cent less funding than in the next worst jurisdiction in Australia. Just ponder that. That was the level of mental health funding under the Liberal Party.

We are seeking to address that. It takes significant amounts of money, and we have not provided enough. We admit that now. Five million dollars in this budget in the outyears is not nearly enough to redress what we inherited from you in relation to the underfunding of mental health. The additional $10 million to $12 million provided for disability services in the budget in the outyears is not nearly enough to resolve the issues in relation to disability funding.

So a decision was made-a tough decision, a hard decision-that some areas of health expenditure had to pay the price to address some of the appalling shortages which we discovered after coming to office. I will say here now-and I will say it whenever these numbers go up-

Mr Humphries: Which they are obviously going to.

MR STANHOPE: They went down in September, and of course you did not put out a press release in September. The media did not run it. I did not see a the front page Canberra Times story headed "Shock, horror! Waiting List Reduces". You did not run it, and nobody was interested in it. It would have required a little bit of focus on exactly what the issues and the priorities are.

The fact remains that there has been a 12 per cent increase overall in health funding, similarly for each of the hospitals. The elective surgery waiting list is one area of the portfolio that is feeling the strain, along with accident and emergency, where there are strains as a result of the federal government's outrageous inattention to, and neglect of, Medicare and support for GPs. They need to do something about the lack of availability of bulk-billing.

Mrs Dunne: And what are you doing about that?

MR STANHOPE: What are we doing about the fact that your federal colleagues are belting the stuffings out of general practice and Medicare? What are you doing about it? Our great hope in relation to that is that when one of you, whichever one is lucky enough to get the numbers, gets into the Senate you will do something about your colleagues' appalling disregard for the things that matter to the people of Australia, in particular the health of our health system.

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