Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 3558 ..

. I do not intend that all these funds be committed in the 1998/99 financial year. I will in fact be asking the Treasurer to make these funds available over the next two to three budgets to ensure that we can put in place a longer term strategy to address the waiting list problem.

. In answer to Mr Stanhope's question about when we might see an improvement in waiting lists and waiting times, l anticipate that the additional funding applied in the 1998/99 budget might begin to take effect in the second half of the current financial year. As I have previously indicated however, there are no easy solutions to the problem of long waiting lists and excessive waiting times, and we will need to deal with the systemic issues that are bringing these problems about.

. I would like to conclude by saying that I believe the Commonwealth will be flexible as to the application of CUT funding and I am considering an approach to the Commonwealth Minister to seek his approval to a commitment of $1.7M over the next five years for a Healthy Cities project which is fundamental to the future directions for health in the ACT as set out in Setting the Agenda.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .