Page 1198 - Week 04 - Thursday, 17 March 2005
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system, I suppose it would have been dismissed out of hand but, because he was justifying a federal move, Mr Abbott is on record as saying that health costs escalate at a far greater rate than normal escalation.
On top of that, I want to refer to a couple of things that this government has had to absorb in its time. The previous government started out with the Gallop report—inadequacies in the previous Liberal-run disability services implied additional costs. I think we followed the Gallop report. We then had a bushfire. We had in place emergency services structures that had been in place well before we came to government and we have had to handle that pressure. We had the McLeod report following the fire, which also required significant funding.
We now have the report that was done on children at risk, and we find that we have to make further massive investment. This government has picked up on a whole raft of inadequacies in a budget we inherited. I think the last budget of the Liberals was quite scandalously understated. It has picked up on Gallop, it has picked up on McLeod and it has picked up on the report on children at risk. It has absorbed those things as well as building of the services.
There are pressures within the health portfolio. As we all know—unless you do not have your ear to the ground at all; unless all those people who ring Jacqui Burke’s office every day or run up to her when she is campaigning are not telling her what is actually going on—there is increasing pressure on disability services and on other services. Right across the spectrum there are increasing expectations within our community for service, whether it be ISPs or disability services. Those things this government will attempt to meet.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella—Leader of the Opposition) (4.35): It is a pleasure to speak after the Treasurer when he displays his ignorance in a way that only the Treasurer can. The Treasurer started by saying that the opposition has never sounded a warning about the government’s profligate spending. I want to read from page 6 of my speech last year, as leader, in response to the budget. I said:
There are nastier things than the deficit. If we look at the assumptions behind this budget, we see employment growth static, state final demand halved and then static, and predicted investment static. These should send clear warning bells to a prudent government or a prudent treasurer.
I went on to say:
The only louder message these figures could send would be if they were in big, red letters that said, “Big correction coming,” but the Treasurer and his government ignore the inevitable.
I then quote from page 96 of budget paper 3, which says:
The estimated outcome continues to remain flat in 2005-06 as expenditure growth outstrips revenue growth, improving in the 2006-07 forward year, as revenue growth driven by taxes, fees and fines, grants and other own source revenue exceeds expenditure growth.
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