Page 1442 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
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rather than a much broader cycle that would benefit people more. The Liberal opposition is focusing on the deficit as though that in itself is a bad thing.
Mr Mulcahy: $300 million is pretty frightening.
DR FOSKEY: Well, we are all still having arguments about what it is and—
Mr Mulcahy: No, no. That is out of their budget papers.
DR FOSKEY: We will see how it goes. The ACT government does have a trend of spending money and talking up how well it is doing things. It presents publications that show how well it is doing things, yet we keep hearing about those things that are not being done well at all. There is a tendency to spend on the acute end, rather than the prevention end. For example, in the last budget $463 million was allocated to the acute end of health services and only $16.7 million to early intervention and prevention. I know hospitals are really expensive, but we should be putting more money into keeping people out of them.
The government keeps reiterating how it is investing $13 million in homelessness services but unless the underlying causes of homelessness, including housing affordability, mental health and family support are addressed this investment will grow. Public housing is a problem for the government. It promised $30 million. We need to look at how we can increase the sustainability of public housing. The need for public housing continues to grow and unless people have an address and a decent place to live, it is very hard for them to access work and education and so on. I really do not think I need to tell people that.
We are running a campaign to attract people to the ACT but we seem to be having problems supporting a lot of the people who already live here. We also need to consider the environmental impact of more people in the ACT if we do not move to sustainability in building and urban design. We have not heard anything in the federal budget—
MR SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella—Leader of the Opposition) (11.36): Mr Corbell rose and pointed his finger and gestured and paced and laid the blame fairly and squarely at the feet of the former Liberal government for not doing the right thing. Mr Corbell is either ignorant or has not read the history or he has, as he always does, put a spin on the truth.
We need to put in context what it is that all jurisdictions agreed to do and intend to do and should have done by the 2002-03 budget—a budget brought down by the Stanhope Labor government. At the May 1991 Premiers Conference all jurisdictions agreed to the introduction of a thing called the UPF, the uniform presentation framework. The format of the UPF is based on the reporting standard of the Australian Bureau of Statistics Government Finance Statistics, or GFS. So if you hear UPF, read GFS. We agreed to do this because it ensures a high degree of consistency in the preparation and presentation of financial data. The Follett Labor government agreed to this in 1991.
In 1997 all jurisdictions agreed to the revised uniform presentation framework—read GFS—which simplified, rationalised and enhanced reporting requirements while
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