Page 129 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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average of $353 per child. That, of course, reflects in part the establishment of our popular early childhood schools which deliver a whole range of early childhood services for children and families, including childcare. But these are all inconvenient truths.
There are plenty more. Elective surgery waiting times are always a favourite of oppositions with no ideas. For someone waiting in discomfort, even one day’s wait is a day too long. As Mr Seselja knows, waiting times reflect the times waited by people who have already had their surgery, not those still waiting. There is one quite simple but incredibly cruel way of bringing down the official waiting times—that is, to give surgery to people who have been on waiting lists for the shortest periods, but we do not do that. We might call it the Seselja elective surgery solution. It is a perfect complement to the Liberals’ policy of reducing hospital bed numbers, which in itself is another extremely effective way of keeping people on waiting lists for longer—out of sight and out of mind for statistical purposes. That is what the Liberals did the last time they were in government. They cut hospital beds in this city by 114. It is a stunning record of achievement by a government to cut public hospital beds by 114. I am stunned whenever members of the Liberal Party in this place stand up and pontificate and moralise on our commitment to public health in this city when their record in government was to cut 114 beds.
Mr Seselja: It was 40 days that you had to wait then.
MR STANHOPE: Mr Seselja parrots, “Yes, 40 days,” but at what cost? The motion goes to efficiencies and efficiencies in government. What was the cost of delivery of health services under the Liberals? It was 130 per cent. What did the Productivity Commission report in relation to the cost of health services in the ACT in its 2001 report? Under the Liberal Party public health costs in the ACT were at 130 per cent—30 per cent above the national average. Mr Seselja stands up and parrots, “Yes, waiting times were only 40 days,” but at a cost of 30 per cent. There were completely unsustainable costs and inefficiencies. It was at a cost of 130 per cent which, since coming to government, we have brought down to 106.6 per cent.
The other fact that Mr Seselja does not go to in the ROGS report in relation to health expenditure and efficiency is the relative cost of delivering health services in the ACT today as compared to 2001. It is 106 per cent as against 130 per cent and he stands up today and moves a motion condemning us for being inefficient. The Liberal Party’s record was to deliver health services to this territory at a cost of 30 per cent above the national average. He dares then to compare relative waiting times. If you are spending 30 per cent more than the national average on health costs, unsustainable costs, and closing hospital beds at the same time, just ponder and reflect on it. You closed 114 beds whilst spending 30 per cent more than the national average on health expenditure.
We have reopened all the beds, plus twice as many. We have taken bed numbers from 670 to 900 and we have reduced expenditure. In other words, we have created efficiencies, reducing the Liberal Party’s enormous 130 per cent spend. We have the best health outcomes in Australia. Labor, by contrast to Mr Seselja, has a deliberate policy of identifying for surgery those Canberrans who have already been waiting the longest for elective surgery. That is why waiting times are the length they are. We are
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