Page 3624 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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we as a society and as a community will ensure that those living in disadvantage have every opportunity despite their particular disadvantage, whether it be a personal disadvantage of some kind, such as a disability and an incapacity to participate in paid work, age, retirement or fixed income, to continue to contribute to society, to continue to participate in the life of society, to the extent that they wish and to continue to meet and reach their potential.
You do that through a genuine commitment to egalitarianism, to a fair go, to a fair and just society, and that does require some resourcing. It requires a government that is sensitive and sympathetic to the need to construct a society that is based on fairness and justice. It requires us to be able to invest at an appropriate level in public education, public health and public safety and the provision of services across the board. That is what this government does.
That is a commitment which languished under you in government, which led to the closure of 114 public hospital beds, which led to a circumstance in which we as a jurisdiction, when we took government, were confronted with expenditure on mental health that, on a per capita basis, was the lowest in Australia. When we took government we inherited the Gallop commission report into disability services and the absolute shambles in relation to disability services.
I could go on in relation to what it was that we inherited. That was a government and an education system that had been simply allowed to trundle along as it has since self-government without any regard for efficiencies or delivery of the sorts of excellent outcomes achieved by a massive injection such as that which has been a feature of this government over the last two years. This government has injected $350 million, through two budgets, into public education. It has been prepared to ensure sustainability in its budget.
Mr Mulcahy: I raise a point of order under standing order 118 (b). I asked a question in relation to the tax treatment of people on fixed incomes. We are now talking about school budgets. It is really well off the subject matter.
MR SPEAKER: I think you asked the question: what consideration do you give to people on fixed incomes? I think the Chief Minister is dealing with the question of services generally to people like those.
MR STANHOPE: I have. We have considered the legitimate needs and expectations of all Canberrans. People on a fixed income do have particular issues. Of course, the majority of people within the ACT on fixed incomes are those on commonwealth provided superannuation or pensions. It is a commonwealth issue. It is a matter which the government that has actually held the strings for 11 years federally has done absolutely nothing about.
All those that are recipients of commonwealth superannuation are, of course, on fixed incomes—and this is a major gripe—that are adjusted by CPI annually. Yet we as a jurisdiction—this is the crux of the question—dare to suggest that it is necessary and appropriate, in an environment where the cost of providing government services is rising faster than government revenue. And the major driver of that, of course, is
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