Page 1844 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 22 August 2007
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political consequence. We had the courage and the faith to take decisions on—for instance, the level of health expenditure, which as recently as 14 or 15 months ago was 24 per cent above the national average.
Expenditure in the ACT on health is 24 per cent above the Australian average. And this is an expenditure of $750 million. So we are talking about a lot of dollars—$750 million—24 per cent above the Australian average for expenditure on health service delivery. That has now been reduced to 14 per cent as a result of last year’s budget. It has been reduced to 14 per cent as a result of decisions taken last year.
We have established a Shared Services Centre, which has in its first year achieved precisely the savings sought of it and will now in this full year—its first full year—and into the future deliver savings of $20 million a year. (Time expired)
MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. I thank the Chief Minister and Treasurer for his answer. Chief Minister, you mentioned the functional review. Why won’t you table the findings of the functional review so that the community will itself be able to judge the quality of the financial advice which you have been receiving and on which you say you have based your decisions?
MR STANHOPE: As I have indicated on numerous occasions, the functional review was a review commissioned for the purposes of cabinet. It attracts cabinet confidentiality. As with all other cabinet documents of this and every other government since self-government—and indeed for hundreds of years in every Westminster democracy around the world—cabinet documents attract confidentiality. This is one of those documents and will be treated in exactly the same way as every other document that attracts confidentiality in that way.
Mr Pratt: That is because they are bum covering documents.
MR STANHOPE: In relation to the issue of the budget and the surplus, the budget did deal with the hard issues—the issues which a government lacking in competence, such as those that the Liberal Party has produced—
Mr Pratt: All right, bottom covering documents.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Pratt!
MR STANHOPE: has reduced, for instance, the 31 per cent of vacancy or excess capacity within our public school system. There is nobody who seriously argues that that is not a good thing. It is a good thing. As a result of that, and with the savings that were generated through the removal of 31 per cent of excess capacity in our public school system, we have injected over $300 million into our public school system.
That is a level of investment 15 times greater than the annual savings generated as a result of those decisions. The system will benefit. We are determined to ensure that public education maintains its position as the education system of choice. We are devoted to the system. We will support it to the death, as we do. And, to that extent, we will put in the resources that reflect our commitment to public education.
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