Page 634 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, may I say at the outset that I do not pay lip-service to Seniors Week. The statements that I made yesterday were realistic expressions of government intent and government achievements in relation to seniors. Mr Kaine has raised a particular issue about having specialists available in government shopfronts. May I say at the outset that it is the intention that people working in the shopfronts can answer a wide range of requests for information and requests for assistance from members of the community, no matter what those requests might encompass, and certainly this is the case with seniors.
Madam Speaker, it is also the case that older people in the community do not have a single set of requirements. They are as diverse a group as any other group in the community. Their requirements range from sporting activities and community services, their domestic requirements and household services, and so on, through to health services, a whole range of assistance very similar to anybody else in the community, with the addition of those particular services like the seniors card which the Government does provide. Even in the area of concessions arrangements there are a range of concessions available to people who are on pensions or who are qualified for those, but, again, that is not exclusive to seniors in our community. There are other groups who also qualify for those sorts of arrangements. The question of putting specialists into shopfronts is not one that has arisen to this point. Mr Kaine is the first person ever to raise it with me. Madam Speaker, I thank him for raising it and I will give it very careful consideration in looking at the needs of older people in our community.
Health Budget
MRS CARNELL: My question is to the Minister for Health. I ask the Minister: How much of the $4.2m budget overrun, to the end of December 1992, has been supplemented subject to the business rules?
MR BERRY: Madam Speaker, it has been announced here in this place, on a number of occasions, that there will be extra costs for health this year, and those extra costs go to the increasing number of people that we are providing services to in the public hospital system.
Mr Kaine: Are you on top of your budget, or are you not, Minister? Just answer the question.
MR BERRY: I am on top of it, all right. Mr Kaine asks, "Are you on top of the budget?". I am on top of it. That is the contrast with when he was in office. We know exactly where we are. We know the extent of the extra costs which are arising from the extra services that are being provided. We know that there is a declining level of private insurers in our public hospital system, and that is providing us with some finance difficulties, if you like. Negotiations continue with Treasury about the provision of funds up until the end of the year.
Mrs Carnell: How much has been supplemented?
MR BERRY: You do not just stop the clock. This is about the Treasury - - -
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