Page 2519 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 June 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
In estimates the minister, I think, conceded that the department could not live within its budget. We all know that. This government has budgeted at half the rate of what it needs just to keep afloat, let alone try to get ahead, for the delivery of health services in the ACT. I think that that puts serious doubt on the government’s ability to deliver a $1 million surplus in 2006-07; the health overrun will wipe that out on its own, let alone other things like corrections services.
What we see in the estimates is just a fantasy; it is just this fantasy that we will somehow live within our means when we know that in health, if you fund an increase at only four per cent, you are already four per cent behind the mark, let alone any additional pressure. First and foremost, the whole of the government’s budget strategy is blown by Mr Corbell’s inappropriate handling of the health portfolio.
Secondly, the dissenting report shows how the ACT health system is the most expensive in the country. And it is the most expensive in the country; we gave now eclipsed the Northern Territory, which has enormous problems with distance and with the health of its large indigenous population. We now know, through the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, that we overspend, in effect, by 30 per cent. There is 30 per cent more service we could get out of our health service if it was managed properly.
It is interesting that yesterday’s state of our public hospitals report ranks us third on public hospital spending. Most expensive is the Northern Territory, then comes Western Australia and then comes the ACT. Here is confirmation of what the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says. In the ACT it is 35 per cent more expensive to run the hospital system than the national average. There is no clear reason for that; there is no excuse that the minister can make that I think will cover that.
We had, in the estimates report and in the dissenting report, very serious concerns that the department, through the decision that it has put in place, is rorting the fringe benefits tax. Mr Corbell, in his faint-hearted attack on Mr Mulcahy, said, “You should know that you only go there for an individual to get a ruling.” That is interesting because, when they went to try to get a ruling last time, they got a negative ruling; they got knocked back, saying, “You can’t do it.” Rather than doing the right thing by their employees, instead of exposing employees, they did not ask the tax office the next time they did it. “Let’s do it and nobody will notice.” People do notice.
Now Mr Corbell says, “We’ll go back and try to get a ruling from the tax office. We did and we lost; we did not because we knew we would lose; now, because we are exposed, we will.” The attempted ridicule of Mr Mulcahy falls very flat from a minister whose performance in this portfolio can only be described as very flat.
There were other things that were brought to light in the estimates process—women having to wait for up to six months for breast screenings, the department falling 800 short of its target for this year; 13 per cent of the psychiatric services unit having been shut since January, and the outrageous, I think, pay parking being introduced at the hospital. All this is is a slug on patients. There was no evidence presented that suggested that people are parking there to avoid paying their parking fees at Woden; it was absolutely all anecdotal. So we have now got budget policy run on anecdotes.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .