Page 633 - Week 02 - Thursday, 14 February 2013
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Mr Stanhope said in his budget reply speech in 2000, prior to becoming Chief Minister in 2001, “We need a government that will focus on delivering quality services and low taxes.” Yet after 12 years of Labor in charge we have higher rates and charges than ever before and not much in the way of return in delivery of services.
Again, prior to the 2001 election where ACT Labor was successful in gaining government, Labor’s health policy stated: “Waiting lists for elective surgery are unacceptably long. ACT Labor believes we can do better.” Yet what we actually have after 12 years is hospital waiting times deteriorating even further in every category, with only 42 per cent of patients requiring urgent treatment and 44 per cent of patients requiring semi-urgent treatment being seen on time.
Continuing on in health, Canberrans with a mental illness have received inadequate treatment for years because of Labor’s delay in opening an acute adult mental health facility. As a result of Labor’s delays, Canberrans with acute mental illness were treated at the widely condemned psychiatric secure unit for years longer than they should have been. At the opening of the new facility, Katy Gallagher admitted that there were extensive delays and cost blow-outs and admitted that the psychiatric secure unit had been grossly inadequate.
Late last year—again, an election year—Ms Gallagher officiated at the opening of the much-lauded women’s and children’s hospital, another facility badly needed in Canberra. Yet the hospital she opened was only half complete, years late and tens of millions of dollars over budget. Still, at the Canberra Hospital, the most fundamental of all infrastructure at that facility is the car park. For years patients and visitors to the hospital had to endure inadequate parking while the Labor government fumbled around. The car park budget inevitably blew out from $29 million to $43 million, was a year late and resulted in the demolition of an existing multistorey car park on the same site.
Now to what has been described as Labor’s iconic failure—the Gungahlin Drive extension. This road has taken longer to build than the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was spectacularly over budget and spectacularly late. A major arterial road that was going to cost $53 million and be finished in 2004 ended up costing hundreds of millions of dollars more and not being completed until 2011—not to mention the Canberra commuters enduring delays in the ensuing years.
Even then, at the time of the opening of the road Mr Corbell had the hide to try and change history by stating that the GDE was completed 2½ months early, when in actual fact it had been 10 years since ACT Labor first announced the road. What is more, Mr Corbell had famously said that this road would come in on time, on budget and would be completed early. This is ACT Labor’s idea of delivering a commitment. We also have the aquatic equivalent of the GDE—the Cotter Dam. The budgeted cost for the dam in 2009 was $363 million. Prior to that it was $100 million. Where we will end up nobody knows, least of all this government.
The Labor governments past have left us with a legacy of pre-election stunts that would seemingly be to provide a smokescreen for their inability to complete projects
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