Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4152 ..

What we have had to date is a 34-month malaise from a government that does not know how to deliver and does not have the ideas to deliver. Because of that, we have a number of plans, reports, inquiries and boards to cover up for their lack of activity—and it is a mound yea high, Mr Speaker. I would have brought them all down and thrown them on the table, but I am sure you would have accused me of using props, which of course would be inappropriate.

The problem is that, for all the work that this government has done and the millions of dollars that they have spent on plans and consultancies, the majority of the plans deliver nothing. For all the extra money that this government has spent on services for the people of the ACT, what we have done is spent more and got less. You only have to look at the health portfolio, where the budget increased from $501 million in 2002-03, which included community care, to $628 million, not including community care, in the 2004-05 budget. So what we have is a mammoth increase—more than $100 million—in the health budget. And what have we got? Less service, longer waiting lists and a system in crisis.

When we left office after the election in 2001, the September 2001 waiting list numbers showed 3,488. In August this year, just last week, the government released the July 2004 figures, and those numbers have gone to 4,698. In fact, they now surpass the figures that were left by the Follett government in 1995—numbers you would be closely aware of. What we have seen is a 35 per cent increase in the waiting list.

The claim is: we have got more throughput. But if you average the figures since they have been kept, you will find that for the times the Liberal Party was in office the average throughput was about 710 patients a month. The average throughput for this government, for its term of office, is about 660. Yes, throughput has changed; it has gone down. With that, waiting times have gone up. Nearly half of elective surgery clients are now overdue for their surgery. Half of the people waiting for surgery do not get seen on time.

Add to that an emergency department in crisis. I think it was Chris Uhlmann on the 2CN program the other day who said that, in all the time that he had been reporting on the Assembly since the Assembly was set up, he had never seen a document where 13 senior clinicians had felt that they must write not just to the government but to the opposition and others to say that they could not guarantee the safety of patients in their care because of the pressure that the hospital is under.

We know that because the government has admitted to at least 37 bypasses in a seven-month period. Perhaps the minister, when he stands up to defend his record, would tell us how many bypasses have occurred in the full time of this government. We find that we are using ambulances as wards. Ambulances should be responding to emergencies, not left stacked up in the forecourt of the hospital as mobile hospital wards.

We saw protracted delays in negotiating the VMOs; we had protracted delays in dealing with medical indemnity; and we saw the heavy-handed tactics of the minister in dealing with the nurses dispute.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .