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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2942 ..

progress by this government on capital works is glacial. We have said that several times and you will hear us say it again, because it is absolutely true. With regard to one of the most important units at the hospital in terms of the safety of patients and the safety of staff, we have a government that after nine months—to the end of March—had expended only $20,000 of the $350,000.

It will be interesting to see whether somebody opposite jumps up in question time tomorrow and asks the acting minister a dorothy dixer about whether the government has completed the upgrade of the PSU and spent all of the $350,000 to make it safe. Mr Speaker, I will bet you a $2 scratchie that we will not hear a question like that tomorrow, because that has not happened. It has not happened because the system that the government has put in place militates against anything happening in the health department quickly, efficiently and effectively and because we do not have ministers delivering on their capital works projects. If you look at the capital works report tabled today you will see that none of the ministers are delivering on their capital works projects. None of the ministers are delivering on them because they do not pay attention to them.

In the estimates process we looked at the transition facility and Mr Corbell, as the then minister, said that he was not happy with it and had directed the department to lift its game. I would direct members to all of the capital works projects, but particularly to the capital works projects for health and the upgrading of some pretty important facilities that is lingering, waning or simply has not occurred.

Mr Speaker, the opposition will make something of that in the next couple of days, as you would expect. But, in terms of the PSU, I think that it is a terrible indictment of the government that it will not have that facility ready by tomorrow. I believe that the government is not interested in mental health and not interested in improving the lot of the people of the ACT who suffer from mental health problems.

There are other areas of concern. I am sure that members will speak about respite care in particular. I think that there is a huge amount of unmet need in the community for respite care. There has been a decline in some public health services, sometimes for reasons out of the control of the government. Everybody talks about preventive health but, if we do not move seriously to a preventive health model, pressure will gain on the hospital, particularly on the emergency department, over the next 10 years, between now and 2013, as the aged population of the ACT, those older than 65 years, doubles and puts additional pressure on our health system.

MS DUNDAS (8.41): I wish to raise a few points in relation to ACT Health. It is unfortunate and disappointing that, like last year, there is no funding for recruiting nurse practitioners, as there are nurses already working in the ACT who are qualified as nurse practitioners. I think that that is something on which the government should be moving a little bit more quickly. The legislation has been changed so that nurse practitioners can operate. That was done as a result of a trial for over a year in the ACT.

There are people qualified as nurse practitioners who are currently operating as nurses in the ACT. Why can’t we support them to use their skills as nurse practitioners? It would do so much for those nurses and so much for our health system and it is something that we should be doing in terms of trying to address the GP shortage that is impacting on so

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