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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4276 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

with other measures that his knowledge of the health system is extremely shoddy and shallow. The targets Mr Smyth has suggested have clearly not been developed rigorously. Some have clearly been plucked out of the air, some do not make sense, others try to hold the ACT government responsible for the failings of the Commonwealth government, and a number would be extremely expensive to introduce.

I do not need to go through them all, but I will highlight examples of the problems. First, he proposes as a target for screening programs-I presume he means cancer-screening programs-reaching national average participation rates by June 2004. For breast and cervical cancer screening, ACT participation rates are currently above national averages, so we assume that Mr Smyth thinks that we are spending too much on screening and we need to decline participation in our screening programs to bring them back to national averages. That just shows how shallow and absurd his targets are. He wants us to work to achieve national averages when we are above national averages. He wants to go backwards, such is the depth of his understanding of the issues contained within his release.

In relation to mental health, he proposes as a target that the incidence of substance use disorders, anxiety disorders and depression reach the national average by June 2004 and be lowest in the country by December 2008. These, of course, are laudable targets, but require substantial additional resources for health promotion, early intervention and treatment programs. Indicative costings of the investment required put the figure for this initiative at $6 million per annum; that is, $6 million per annum just to achieve the targets that Mr Smyth includes for mental health.

That, of course, is coming from the party that, in government, was content to allow funding for mental health services in the ACT to be the lowest in the country, a situation reported on just this year. Mental health funding in the ACT is 171/2 per cent lower than that for the next worse jurisdiction in Australia, yet Mr Smyth came in here yesterday and set out some targets, some of which need to be reached by June 2004, which my department has advised me would take a minimum of $6 million a year to reach-that is next year, that is in this budget cycle.

Are we to introduce another appropriation bill? Are we to cut some other program? Where is the $6 million just for mental health to come from? What is to be cut? Which new taxes are to be raised? When should we introduce the appropriation bill that deals just with this funding for mental health, this $6 million just for mental health? Mr Smyth seems to expect the ACT government to take on responsibility for the failings of the Commonwealth government. He proposes targets for increased aged-care places. I would like to remind him that the allocation of these places is a Commonwealth government responsibility and that perhaps he should be helping us to get his Commonwealth colleagues to provide adequate services for the ACT community.

If the ACT has to take on this responsibility from the Commonwealth-that is, the responsibility and the target set by Mr Smyth in his document-the initial estimates from the department of health are that the expenditure required to run the 30-bed facility that Mr Smyth wants us to conclude before June 2004 would be $1.5 million per annum and the capital cost would be $5 million. Those are Commonwealth expenditures and responsibilities that Mr Smyth asks us to pick up. He wants us to pick up the $5 million

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