Page 576 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
the need for very substantial capital investment in the public hospital so that it might become the public hospital that the residents of the north side of Canberra deserve;
sustaining a viable and vibrant private hospital …
That is very important. Let us remember that the private hospital that operates with the good will of the ACT government, and probably this Assembly, within that public hospital will have to go because we will have to resume that site. So let us just think about that problem. We will not have a private hospital on that site. Their third point was providing a solid basis for them in the future in Canberra in their area of specialty in palliative care.
The government, of course, had some major financial issues to consider in terms of: how do we make this investment in an asset we do not own? Mr Hanson has gone to that in terms of his rigorous analysis of the financial advice and has, again, attempted to ridicule Treasury and, I believe, Ernst & Young, who provided the peer review—
Mr Hanson: No. I was ridiculing you, minister.
MS GALLAGHER: which Mr Hanson sought and now is criticising me for commissioning.
I think Mr Hanson uses the economist Sinclair Davidson and the other economist, Terry Dwyer. And, if you go to Terry Dwyer’s analysis, Terry Dwyer’s analysis looks at one consideration: cash. That is all he looks at. He does not look at the operating budget. He does not look at the balance sheet. And the government cannot ignore that. A government looking at making the investments that are required has to look at a whole range of indicators across the financial statements.
The position the opposition have put themselves in now is saying: “Don’t worry about any of those. Just fund this from the operating budget. Just fund $200 million from the operating budget.”
Mr Smyth: Who said that?
MS GALLAGHER: That is what is being put forward by Davidson and Dwyer. They are saying: “You don’t need to own the asset. You just fund it. It’s yours anyway. It’s a public hospital.” Okay, that $200 million will hit our bottom line. So on the one hand you want us to return the budget to surplus earlier than seven years. And where is that $200 million going to come from? Are we going to raise it in taxes or are we going to cut services? That is the question for the opposition, because that is the reality of the situation we face if we do not change the status quo. And I think there is general agreement across pretty much the entire community, apart from the Liberals, that the status quo cannot continue. Indeed, the archbishop himself accepts that the status quo cannot continue.
The government will pursue a whole range of options in discussing with LCM Health Care how we move forward on this. Obviously the proposal as it stood is not going to
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video