Page 3060 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 23 September 2014
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Dr Bourke: It is on the question of relevance. I believe Mr Hanson is being entirely irrelevant to the matter of public importance at this point.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Thank you.
MR HANSON: On the point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker, what we are talking about here is the government’s priorities. Indeed in the speeches we have heard from I think all members so far there was talk about the priorities and where health sits in the balance of priorities for the government. I am simply explaining that health should be a priority and pointing out areas where this government is following issues which, in my view, and certainly in the view of many of my constituents, should not be a priority and are not a priority in comparison to health.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Hanson. Start the clock again. The matter of public importance is actually about getting healthcare priorities right. I am happy to allow you a little leeway but I presume you will be getting to the healthcare priorities very shortly.
MR HANSON: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker; certainly. In doing so I will refer to the editorial in last Friday’s Canberra Times. It is interesting because in some ways the Canberra Times staff get to sit back and watch the debate and watch this town. I do not think they are inclined necessarily to be supportive of one side of politics necessarily over another. Certainly I would not suggest that they have a tendency to support our side of the house. That editorial said:
Like a heart-attack victim who can no longer pretend his or her discomfort is caused by indigestion, Canberra Hospital administrators have this week had to contemplate the reality that patient pressure can be disregarded no longer, and that urgent corrective action is required.
It continues:
As far back as 2009, concerns were being expressed about the ACT public hospital system’s approach to full capacity, and for the government and health policymakers to have let matters slide until Canberra’s main hospital was bulging at the seams suggests, at the very least, inattention to detail … The Territory is, after all, a relatively prosperous jurisdiction with no requirement to provide healthcare to remote or distant communities. It has no difficulty attracting and keeping doctors and clinicians. It even has a medical school adding to the Territory’s medical stocks. Yet, on bed numbers and other performance indicators such as emergency response times and surgery waiting lists, the Territory is a noted laggard.
So it is not just me saying it. It is not just the dozens of constituents that I talk to. It is people who sit back and have a good knowledge of this town. They look at the balance of priorities and at the performance of this health system, and what they note is that in comparison to other jurisdictions we are laggards.
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