Page 6 - Week 01 - Thursday, 4 November 2004
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My government had a vision for Canberra—one that was based on strong values and on the aspirations of the community, on their hopes and dreams and their priorities. We had a vision founded on our strengths as a community and on a shared view of what the future could bring, and we stayed true to that vision and to our values.
We developed a major new plan for Canberra, the Canberra plan—a visionary document covering our social, economic and spatial progress from now until Canberra’s centenary and beyond. We implemented groundbreaking legislative reform on important social issues, introducing Australia’s first and only bill of rights, removing discrimination against same sex couples and ensuring that the rights and wellbeing of workers are protected through major industrial relations reforms.
In the key area of health, the major focus of the election campaign, we increased funding to a record $613 million a year—over $160 million a year more than the last year of the previous government; we increased the volume of elective surgery; we addressed major deficiencies and funding in mental health, increasing funding to $117 per head, compared with $87 per head previously; we slashed dental surgery waiting lists; and we dismantled the purchaser/provider model that served to divide rather than unite the health portfolio.
Importantly, we did not run the hospitals down. We provided the staff with the real support they needed to keep delivering high-quality health care services, despite unprecedented surges in demand, and we worked with them to identify and implement real solutions to problems.
In education, we cut class sizes in government schools and put $27 million of bus money into real education programs. We boosted funding by more than $37 million on top of that. We also boosted funding to public housing and to disability services. We awarded pay increases to our health care workers, teachers and public servants and provided much needed support to those who needed it the most.
We dealt decisively, sensitively and generously with the greatest natural disaster to have befallen Canberra and its citizens and we progressed our plans for a new prison in the ACT. We did not treat our social and economic priorities as mutually exclusive. We refused to pit those in need of health care against those in need of rehabilitation. While doing all of that, we kept growth in the economy, we created jobs and we delivered budget surpluses.
We acknowledged in the campaign that we had achieved a great deal, but that there was more to be done. We went to the people with a solid plan to build on our record. In health, we committed to an additional 80 beds in Canberra’s public hospital system over the next two years; an extra $9.7 million to deliver elective surgery to an additional 700 Canberrans; after-hours GP clinics at Calvary, the Canberra Hospital and Erindale; an extra $2 million to implement the alcohol, tobacco and other drugs strategy; $10 million to establish a psychiatric services unit to replace the existing unit at Canberra Hospital; $15 million to establish the Canberra Hospital as a centre for surgical excellence, investing in leading edge technology so more people can get access to surgery sooner; an additional $8 million over four years for health promotion and disease
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