Page 3058 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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significantly. I notice that a little while ago the minister said in the media that we now need another 148 GPs in Canberra. When she speaks I would be interested to hear where that figure comes from. It is the first I have heard of it.
Ms Gallagher: The ROGS data.
MR HANSON: Thank you. I am not across the background to that. I genuinely would be interested in seeing how the figure that we have been talking about previously as being in the 60 to 70 band—
Ms Gallagher: It is full time.
MR HANSON: Full-time equivalent, is it?
Ms Gallagher: It is 60 full-time equivalents.
MR HANSON: Maybe we can discuss that offline, minister. Whatever that figure is, I think there is a broad understanding that there is a real concern when it comes to the number of GPs that we need. These figures are often difficult to take into consideration. What we do know is that we are spending an enormous amount of money and have been for many years—in actual fact, more than any jurisdiction other than the Northern Territory. For what is the healthiest jurisdiction in terms of many health outcomes—and we are certainly one of the younger jurisdictions—there are some very worrying trends. With the ageing population that we have I guess what we are looking for in this budget is the key that tells us how we are going to cope with those trends in the future. I note that there is a significant amount of expenditure. I have welcomed a number of the lines of funding that are coming through, but what escapes me and others at the moment is a coherent plan that shows us how we are going to get out of the hole that we find ourselves in.
In many of the strategic indicators that we look at there are some short-term goals, which incrementally may move things one or two per cent, and then there are some long-term goals of where we want to hit, but there is nothing that really shows us when and how we are going to achieve those longer term goals. When are we going to get out of the hole? The problem I have, and I think it is a problem that the minister shares—and I am not saying this is something that is going to be a quick fix overnight—is that we find ourselves in a bit of a hole across a number of categories. There is no question of that. We have been spending a lot of money in these areas for a number of years now and we continue to do so. We are not seeing movement in these trends in any significant amount that gives us the assurance that when this tsunami of the ageing population comes we are going to be able to deal with it. If all we are seeing at the moment is very incremental improvement up and down—the figures seem to be reasonably static—and the trends worsen, what do we do? As we have seen, we are spending $800-plus million at the moment. What is the figure that we are going to need to spend in the future, not only to get us out of the hole that we are in but to deal with that tsunami that is coming in? What I have not seen in the budget or the strategy forward is that plan.
Turning to the specifics within the budget and just moving through my speech—I have been adlibbing a bit—there is $12.2 million over four years for the provision of
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