Page 1874 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 7 June 2006
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somewhat illogical. Money is the answer. We have thrown lots of money at it. Three times I think in the last 24 hours I have heard the Chief Minister use the figure that health is going up by $41 million—I think there is a banner in the Canberra Times that says the same—yet Mr Gentleman just said $61 million. I wonder what the real number is. When I go to the budget papers, I can see where Mr Gentleman got his $61 million from, because that is the number I worked out as well.
We have a minister who just does not know where the money is going. The question is: how can this be? Is it $41 million or is it $61 million? The answer is it is immaterial unless you get the ethos of the organisation changed to back up those individuals who are at the sharp end—the nurses, doctors and allied health workers who look after ill and sick Canberrans who come to our hospital system.
At page 174—and I will talk this through slowly—the 2005-06 outcome is $689,999,000. Let us call it $690 million. The 2006-07 budget is $751 million. Normally $690 million to $751 million is $61 million. If it is not, then again the minister and the Treasurer and Chief Minister have put up documents that are false. Is that a $41 million increase or a $61 million increase? The government does not know, and that is symptomatic of the way they run their figures.
We have a Chief Minister who was alarmed when he found out that the public service had grown by so much, but that is because he was not alert. We have a minister who says there are no cuts, and yet the document says we are lopping off 82 heads. We have a Chief Minister who says the health budget is going up by $41 million and we have the backbencher who says it is $61 million. Is anybody in control over there? Does anybody know what they are doing and saying?
If these figures are wrong, I am happy to have it pointed out that I am wrong. But I am quoting your figures. This is the problem. There is not the commitment to health that is required. Health is a very important issue. Mr Gentleman very kindly raised elective surgery, those in need of a bed. When we left office, the latest figures that we had in September 2001 said there were 3,488 individuals on the ACT’s elective surgery waiting list—3,488 on the waiting list.
The question is: how many are there now? That is an interesting question because it did recover slightly. Everybody will remember Mr Corbell’s absolute failure when the list blew out to 5,099 in March 2005, almost 50 per cent over what we left them—50 per cent. Despite the millions of dollars and the series of reforms and the chain of ministers we had, it had gone up. It fell to 4,477 in December 2005, not through surgery but through administration. We removed these people for other reasons. I assume some of them had moved off and paid for it privately and some had probably died. I do not know, because we never found out what that removal was, but more than 400 people were removed from the waiting list.
Here it is, it has gone down, maybe it is going to get better. But, no, it jumps back up and it is now, at the end of March, something like 4,545, which is only 30 per cent higher, Mr Gentleman, than the number we left you when we left office in 2001. Where is this effective, efficient system that the government has created? Where is this system that is looking after people better? The answer is that it only exists in the media releases of the government. That is the only place it can exist, because nothing happens.
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