Page 1886 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 May 2005
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agree with this sentiment. Perhaps we should consider some of the reasons why this budget is so tight and lacks vision. Perhaps it is because the ACT government is failing to allocate reasonable funding to prevention, which results in major amounts of funding to deal with the symptoms.
It is clear in this budget that the ACT government is failing to take a strategic approach to tackling longstanding social and environmental problems. Major areas of spending are at the crisis end of the social services spectrum, with little or no funding going to address the root causes of those problems. Investment in prevention, health promotion and sustainable initiatives is generally lacking. I will give a couple of examples of this. This is the second budget in a row in which we have seen dramatic increases in funding for child protection, with little or no increased investment in family support programs, despite a growing body of research to support effectiveness of family support approaches in building more resilient families better able to care for children. Also, despite producing a mental health strategy and action plan that clearly acknowledge the importance of health promotion and led to the development of the ACT mental health promotion prevention and early intervention (PPEI) plan 2004-2008, there is no funding in this budget for promotion of mental health prevention and early intervention.
In those areas where there is some investment in early intervention, the disparity of funding is telling. For example, under health services $463 million is allocated to acute services and only $16.7 million to early intervention and prevention. Likewise, the government keeps reiterating how it is investing $13 million in homelessness services, but this issue will continue to worsen unless the underlying causes of homelessness, including housing affordability, mental health and family support, are addressed. These are areas in which we see little investment in this budget.
Furthermore, the government has argued that responding to the three major reports—Vardon, Gallop and McLeod—has meant considerable unexpected investment and has inhibited spending in other areas. I have said that over and over again. Every time the Treasurer or the Chief Minister speaks about this budget, they say, “Yes, but the Vardon, the Gallop and the McLeod reports have meant all this extra expense and that means there is less money for other areas.” However, I believe that it could be argued that responding to these reports has been costly because those areas of government responsibility—namely, child protection, disability support and emergency services—have been chronically underfunded and poorly managed over the long term. There will be more and more such examples in the future unless we invest now in important areas of social need. To quote Ara Creswell from the ACT Council of Social Service: “The lesson to learn is that we cannot afford to do human services badly.” Also, I believe only the recommendations of the Vardon report have been adequately responded to. There is still a long way to go in responding to the Gallop and McLeod reports. So I do not believe the government should keep using those reports as an excuse for not acting in other areas.
For quite some time the government has been putting out the message that this budget would be tough. We accept that there are times when tough budgets are necessary. We accept that the ACT has some unusual budgetary constraints. However, we also believe and expect that tough budgets can be delivered in a manner that protects and enhances our environment and is socially just. We are not convinced that this budget delivers in these areas. As indicated earlier, we have no ideological objection to a budget deficit.
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