Page 1581 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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The minister interjects that we cut 100 beds. I would go back and have a look at a few of the things your boss, the Chief Minister, said when he was opposition leader in relation to the issue of hospitals. He bemoaned the fact that nothing much had actually moved in terms of waiting lists. The waiting lists then were far better than they are now. Ms Gallagher, I will continue to remind you of an elementary fact of life that we get on a regular basis and that I have seen myself from first-hand experience. It is that people will wait on average about eight hours in emergency services when up until even about 2002 the average wait was about two hours. We constantly hear stories, more so than you would ever get 10 years ago, of how long people have to wait.
Despite the increased money you are throwing into the system and despite some of the initiatives you have taken, it is still a huge problem. It is a worse problem than it was before, and it is not just connected to the ageing population. I think anyone who knows anything about health realises that that certainly is a factor. There are things you clearly are not doing and can do better. Some things—quite minor matters—relate even to administration. Afterwards I will tell you what you can do in terms of streamlining some of the administration, even on the front desk. I am not blaming the staff or anything like that. There are some simple steps I think that you can probably take to improve things that you simply have not done to date. You simply have not done them to date.
Ms Gallagher: Like the ones that came up last night—
Mr Smyth: Listen to the nurses.
MR STEFANIAK: Good idea. My colleague Mr Smyth interjects, “Listen to the nurses.”
MR SPEAKER: Well, your colleague Mr Smyth should not interject. He is out of order.
MR STEFANIAK: He should not interject, but you would have to actually agree with him on that one, Mr Speaker. Even your failed parking scheme has been used by the minister to concede—again I think it was on the ABC—that it would now be more difficult to fix the hospital system. That was a really absurd state of affairs. That botched scheme actually cost us some $600,000. Talking about policies, we have actually indicated about 10 issues on which we have policies, one of which I am pleased to say you have actually accepted. That is realising the failure and the problems caused by your pay parking scheme at the hospital. That was an absolute farce.
Another critically important area of government is education. On the most basic benchmark, the ACT government is failing in education. The drift to the non-government schools sector has accelerated. It has accelerated and it continues to do so. It has accelerated more because of the closure of the 32 schools. It has accelerated for a number of reasons and it is something that needs to be addressed—
Ms Porter: Where do you get 32 from?
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