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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2348 ..
MR CORBELL
(continuing):day, if we in this place believe that people aren't getting that access and people are suffering as a result of that, we need to do something about it.
Mr Speaker, the government has never ruled out doing something about it, but what we will do first and foremost is make the argument to the Commonwealth that they should be providing the necessary support to GPs in this city so that they can provide the bulk-billing services that our community needs. First and foremost, we have to try to negotiate that outcome with the Commonwealth because the bottom line, Mr Speaker, is that the people of Canberra have paid their taxes already to the federal government to get that service.
I'll take my second 10 minutes, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER
: You can speak for as long as you like. You are the minister in charge.MR CORBELL
: Mr Speaker, the reality is they're not getting it. They've paid for it, they've paid their income tax but they haven't got the service. So we need to do everything we can to make sure that the Commonwealth lives up to that obligation.If they don't, Mr Speaker, we'll look at all the other options. In the context of a negotiation which is happening now, about the Australian Health Care Agreement, we have to try to force the Commonwealth to live up to their obligations. That will be a task that I am setting myself as Health Minister in terms of negotiating the Australian Health Care Agreement with the Commonwealth government.
Mr Speaker, I was disappointed that Ms Tucker did not give greater credit for the significant additional resources the ACT government has put into mental health services. Since coming to office, recurrent mental health funding has increased by nearly $3 million per annum. That's this government's commitment to mental health services, a very significant commitment in the budget. You only have to look through the budget papers and you see that there's a significant level of mental health resources-whether it's additional counselling services in response to bushfire recovery; whether it's Gungahlin outreach services or people with mental health concerns in the Gungahlin area; whether it's an upgrade to the Calvary link activity between Calvary public hospital and the mental health services there; whether it's additional drug and alcohol or mental health workers; whether it's forensic court liaison workers; whether it's expanded community mental health teams; whether it's all of those put together.
Mr Speaker, that's the government's commitment to mental health services-a significant expansion of capacity, close to $3 million per annum funding for mental health services. So the government is continuing to focus on this very important area.
Mr Speaker, it was interesting to note-and I love this one; it just shows how oppositionist they can get sometimes-comments from Mrs Dunne about when is an initiative not an initiative and when does it become a major scandal that's worthy of a mention in the Estimates Committee report. It's interesting that Mrs Dunne claims that an initiative is not an initiative if it's an expansion of an existing program; it's something that you're already doing.
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