Page 1580 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
which follows, hinged on. We have those examples of a government that will not give out logical information to communities affected by its budget decisions of last year and effectively enshrined in this year’s budget. That is not open and honest government. It is not accountable government. It is a secretive government. It is an arrogant government. It is a majority government that thinks it can do what it likes and snub its nose at the people of Canberra.
Mr Pratt: Yes, look at Albert Hall.
MR STEFANIAK: A good point. With respect to the ACT, economist Henry Ergas found recently in a report that there had been an over $900 million increase in revenue compared to 1999-2000, most of which was derived from increased current subsidies and grants and other receipts. He also found, and I do not think this is rocket science, that the ACT undertook increased spending on government services, particularly health, general public services and education. This would be laudable enough if we saw the benefit from it. But unfortunately, he also found that much of this spending was on administration and not front-line services. Indeed, there are indications of a significant decline in service delivery productivity, particularly since 2002-2003. He also set out the increase in the cost for the ACT’s services. The cost of general public services increased by 128 per cent between 1999-2000 and 2005-06. Indeed, if he saw this year’s budget, that would have increased even more.
This government points to targets and funding as if these somehow translate into better services. Canberrans are certainly paying a lot more for government services, but this has not been translated into services that have improved by the same magnitude. Indeed, you would have to ask: have our services improved at all? Let us take health. According to the latest hospital statistics published in May by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the cost of treating patients in Canberra hospitals is 14 per cent higher than in other jurisdictions and administration costs per patient in Canberra hospitals are 26 per cent above the national average. We also find that the ACT was the worst performer on elective surgery waiting times, 10.3 per cent of its elective patients having to wait for more than a year. For elective surgery, the median waiting time across the nation is 32 days. In the ACT it is 61 days.
The ACT health minister explained that the government has been targeting people who have been waiting one to two years for their surgery. In an interview recently on the ABC, her interviewer, Ross Solly, wondered aloud: how well are we targeting, because we still have more than 10 per cent of people who have been waiting for more than one year, which is more than anywhere else in the country. And as Mr Solly remarked, “Looking at these figures; nothing is improving.” You would have to agree with him on that.
Mr Stanhope: Do you? We don’t.
MR STEFANIAK: I am surprised, Jon. According to the same report, only one in two patients received timely treatment in the ACT emergency departments, which is the worst performance in the country. The number of available beds per capita is also the lowest in the nation. While the initiatives in this budget increase the number of acute beds by 20 and provide for additional intensive care beds, there seems to be no attempt to address the high costs and inefficiencies in delivering services.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .