Page 1794 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 4 June 2014
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There are so many industries that we could be involved in. Canberra is built on the knowledge that we have. It is built on the great educational institutions that we have. But I think without a target, to simply say you have got a strategy, which is basically a rename, a rebadge or a relaunch of things that have gone before, and say that is enough, I do not believe that is what the people of the ACT want or what the people of the ACT now need. (Time expired.)
Amendment agreed to.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.
Health—ACT Medicare Local
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella) (5.54): I move:
That this Assembly:
(1) notes that:
(a) the ACT Medicare Local is an important organisation in the ACT's health system and across the ACT community service sector; and
(b) the ACT Medicare Local plays a key role in driving and delivering many preventative health programs across the ACT and employs 60 local Canberrans;
(2) expresses its concern at the decision of the Commonwealth Government to cease funding for the ACT Medicare Local from July 2015;
(3) expresses its support for the work the ACT Medicare Local is doing delivering crucial programs to improve the health of our community, including in childhood obesity, mental health, advanced care plans and homelessness primary health care services; and
(4) calls on the Speaker to write to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health on behalf of the ACT Legislative Assembly to express support for the ACT Medicare Local, its board, staff and the continuation of its programs.
As we know, health services across Australia are under threat by an unprecedented attack on the system by the commonwealth budget. Despite the misleading line being run by the Prime Minister, the federal health minister, Senator Seselja and others, they cannot deny the facts—a $240 million cut from health funding to the ACT over the next four years, the unilateral termination of nationally agreed health and hospital funding reforms, the undermining of Medicare as a free and universal service through the proposed GP co-payment and, as my motion points to, serious threats to the Medicare Local network.
But do not take my word for it—here is what some of the Liberal Premiers had to say at the urgent first ministers meeting held on 18 May. The Queensland Premier, Campbell Newman, said:
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