Page 3013 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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Moving, if I could now, to the national health and hospital reforms in general, as I said before, I do not think that these are a significant reform; I think they are simply a reshuffling of the money, Mr Speaker. But what was quite remarkable was the fact that we went from 30 per cent GST, which was the national average, to 50 per cent of our GST being handed over. And the minister was really at a loss to explain, I think, comprehensively to the estimates committee why that was. I am still awaiting the briefing that I requested literally months ago on those reforms—to get that in detail. I think the reason for the delay is that the minister simply does not know. She signed up to a plan that is either half-baked or she simply does not understand it, because, despite the fact that I asked for a briefing some months ago, my office has still not been provided with that briefing to explain the details. And when you see things like the National Funding Authority fall over—just disappear—it is quite clear. But then maybe when you look at federal Labor—at the absolute chaos that they are in and the leadership problems that they have had—perhaps that is the reason that nothing is actually coming forward to explain what these reforms are: because they are in such chaos.
But I do ask the minister to provide us with a briefing as soon as she is able. I put it on the Hansard: as soon as you can, provide us with a briefing on those national health and hospital reforms, so that we can actually understand what is going on and the people of Canberra can understand what is going on.
The national health and hospital reforms talk about “planned capital”—and say that 60 per cent of planned capital would be provided now by the commonwealth. I am still unsure about what they mean; hopefully, that will be provided in the brief that I have asked for. But I do make the point that, if it means that part or all of the capital asset development plan is going to be provided by the commonwealth, it does put a big hole in the government’s argument for Calvary. It means that their rationale that says that they have got to own Calvary before they invest further money in it and their whole Treasury analysis would now basically not add up and they would need to redo that.
So I just say, until we have that answer, until I have that surety about what is happening, particularly with the planned capital aspect of the plan, although we agree perhaps ideologically or fundamentally about the Calvary process, let us just wait until we actually understand the impact of these hospital reforms before we go ahead with that purchase, because otherwise we could be committing the territory to $160 million of cash over the next 20 years which is a complete waste of money in reality.
The areas of the budget that I have real concern about, in terms of emission as well, relate to mental health funding and preventative health funding. I would just like to take this opportunity to applaud the announcement by the federal opposition of $1.5 billion in mental health funding today. I will quote from the Australian. I noticed that the Chief Minister was doing the crossword earlier, so he may have read this, but it says:
Labor called out on mental health as Coalition commits $1.5bn to the sector
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