Page 1880 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 May 2005
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What is in this budget for the engine room of the ACT economy? What is in it for business? A $4 million cut to Business ACT, an increase in commercial rates of an average $312 a year, and a $1 million cut to the critically important tourism budget. I know the Treasurer will say that that not true. I should note, Treasurer, that your budget papers—budget paper 4 at page 418—clearly show that Australian Capital Tourism will have $1 million less to spend in 2005-06. It goes from $20,543,000 to $19,668,000.
We have continued delays in refurbishing or replacing the National Convention Centre, a cut to the budget of the Canberra Convention Bureau of $100,000, the new tax—the city heart levy—and no relief from payroll tax, and for the community there is nothing in this budget that will assist in their health. Public hospital waiting lists will continue to blow out. There are cuts to mental health; there are also cuts to public health. This is not a business friendly budget, as promised in the white paper. This budget is not a community friendly budget. It is not even friendly for individuals, families or anyone in our community. The combination of additional imposts and reductions in spending in key areas and reductions in service delivery makes it a very unfriendly budget.
Mr Speaker, I want to spend a few minutes considering some of the major policy areas that are dealt with in this budget and, as necessary, suggest how we could deal with the same issues. It is, after all, the opposition’s role to examine critically proposals presented by the government of the day, and we will do that. You will hear from my colleagues in the afternoon. In the lead-up to the next election, we will make the community well aware of what our budgetary priorities are and how we will fund those priorities, assuming, of course, that we do not have a legacy of $344 million to clean up or, to look at it another way, as the Auditor-General has said, a shortfall of liabilities over assets of $658 million by 2007-08.
Our community’s number one priority is health. The policy priority of the Liberal Party in the ACT is health. While this government claims that health is a priority, it is evident that the government has failed to translate that priority into the effective delivery of programs and services. This government has thrown funding at health over four years—$670 million in 2005-06, a substantial increase from the $635 million this year and the $564 million in 2003-04.
But what do we have for an additional $100 million or so that has been provided to health since 2003-04? We all know the answer, don’t we? Longer waiting lists, bypasses for ambulances, bed block, closure of operating theatres for holidays, high-care beds occupied by nursing home type patients, longer waiting times, poor levels of satisfaction, worse value for money, mammograms being sent to Sydney for reading, oncology patients sent to Wagga for treatment, the letter from the Australasian College of Emergency Services now saying that they cannot guarantee the safety of patients, and so the list goes on. This is the area of community interest and concern, and what do we have? A government that simply throws funds at the problems without any sense of how to resolve the problems that exist.
Let me burst a myth or two about the performance of this government in relation to health outcomes. The first myth: the Treasurer, in his budget speech, said:
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