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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2958 ..

There is more to a public health system than elective surgery. We were prepared to acknowledge that, and I acknowledge it here now. We did transfer funds from elective surgery into mental health, into disability services, into respite care, into psychiatric services, into nurses wages and into VMO salaries. We did do that. It was appropriate that we did, because what you left us was an absolute shambles, an absolute disgrace. We have got public health in the ACT back on the road to recovery. And only a Labor government will do it.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Proposed expenditure—part 1.12—Department of Urban Services, $241,462,000 (net cost of outputs), $91,092,000 (capital injection) and $5,632,000 (payments on behalf of the territory), totalling $338,186,000.

MRS DUNNE (9.47): Urban Services is the nuts and bolts of much of the ACT government, the interface between the average voter and the ACT government—and what a sorry tale it is! There is a vast amount of money swashing around in Urban Services—$338 million—and sometimes I think the people of the ACT wonder what they get for their money. When you are out door-knocking and visiting shopping centres, which the Labor Party do not want to do so they probably do not know this, one of the constant cries of people is about the down-at-heel look of Canberra: the graffiti—Mr Cornwell will probably speak at length about this; just a little entree there—and lack of repair to the footpaths, which not just affects the look of the place; it is positively a danger to people.

Mr Stanhope: We spent more on it than you did. Get your facts straight.

MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister has behaved like this most of the day. This afternoon you drew attention to the fact that he was speaking while other people were speaking.

MR SPEAKER: Come to the item expenditure. Chief Minister, please desist.

MRS DUNNE: Much of what we see in Urban Services is about the nuts and bolts, parish-pump interface which this government is not addressing.

Mr Stanhope: We put more money into it than you did.

MRS DUNNE: If the government has put more money into it than the previous government did, again it is an instance of paying for more and getting less. The people of the ACT are telling us, because we will listen to them, that they do not like the run-down look of the city. It is not just the fact that their gardens are dying—and they resent that—but the fact that the street trees are dying.

Mr Stanhope: No—

MRS DUNNE: Mr Speaker, very soon I am going to lose patience. I am going to ask you to warn the Chief Minister because he is being entirely unruly here.

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