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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2952 ..

MR DE DOMENICO (continuing):

What this Government promises we deliver. We deliver it on time. We also get off our hands. I repeat, although it hurts the people opposite, that for us to have done nothing would have meant a loss of jobs. Ms Follett's question before asked, "What is going to happen in 1997 or 1998 or in the future?". There will be no job losses, Mr Speaker. Six hundred people will go from DAS to Totalcare. Any redundancies will be voluntary. Any voluntary redundancies will be paid for out of the pool. I am very confident that after we have transferred the staff across to Totalcare after 1 January 1997, and once those staff members can be competitive with the private sector, there may be an opportunity of increasing the job numbers, as Totalcare has done since it was corporatised.

MR BERRY: I would like to ask a supplementary question. Does the Minister believe that telling a group of workers and their unions one day that something is going to happen and then offering to consult with them afterwards is quality consultation and is in accordance with good industrial practice?

MR DE DOMENICO: I am happy to answer that, Mr Speaker. This Government, as I said, went to the electorate at the end of 1994 and the beginning of 1995 with a clear mandate and a clear policy. That policy was that we supported competition; we supported national competition policy; we supported the corporatisation of all those areas where the taxpayers' dollar could be better spent. The community voted accordingly - 42 per cent for us in comparison to 30 per cent for that lot opposite. That would suggest that what we were doing was perhaps correct. It might not be the view of a lot of people in this Assembly, but that was what we went out with. The four-month consultation process between now and 1 January is pretty good. Last but not least, this Government will never make a decision based on whether the CFMEU agrees with it or not. I am suggesting to Mr Berry that you could fit the number of people in this town who would agree with the CFMEU in a phone box.

MS TUCKER: My question is for Mrs Carnell as Minister for Health. In last year's budget $400,000 was earmarked for implementation of the national mental health strategy. At that time there was some confusion because it looked as though it was ACT money but apparently it was Commonwealth money. Could you clarify that the ACT did receive this money from the Commonwealth, as you indicated in the budget? Can you tell me whether it has all been spent, and can you give me and the Assembly details of when and how it was spent?

MRS CARNELL: I am very happy to. That is what the estimates procedures are actually about. The financial year has finished, and the amount of money that was given to us by the Commonwealth for the last financial year, on the whole, forgetting about rollovers - and I am not confident that there are any rollovers, but I will certainly find out - had to be spent last financial year. My understanding is that the budget for mental health, as in most parts of health, was marginally overspent last year. It certainly was not underspent. When we get into the full process of looking at annual reports and so on in the estimates procedures, you will have an opportunity to go through all of those issues.

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