Page 1960 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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hospitals are the highest cost and have the longest waiting times for elective surgery in Australia. They are costing at least $81 million more than they should. If Canberra’s hospitals—
Mr Gentleman: Where would you take that money from, then?
MR MULCAHY: Mr Gentleman asks where we would take the money from. That is just so typical of a Labor approach to economic management. It is never to cut back in areas of low priority. It is always to add on, have a new levy to fund something and keep spending. They never tackle the fundamental problem with the health system, which is lack of efficiency.
I am glad Mr Gentleman raised that because the very next point I wanted to make is that it costs $81 million more than it should to run Canberra’s hospitals. If Canberra’s hospitals did the same job, on a casemix adjusted separation basis, that they are doing now but at the same cost as the average of other similar hospitals across Australia, they would do it for $81 million less. It is important Mr Gentleman understand that that is the key issue. It is a matter of efficiency and good management. It is costing 23.6 per cent more than it should to run our hospitals.
There is so much more I would like to say on this budget. I know we will have opportunities when we get into the detail stage, but it is a tragedy. It is painful for many of the people in Canberra. I know we cannot read from newspapers in this place but, like a child with a blanket or a dummy, I take this Sydney newspaper today as a comforter. It tells the story. It speaks of the economic vandal whose disgraced government has declared war on Canberra. I think there is a message there for all members of the government.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.41): There is much that I could say about this budget by way of introduction.
Mr Barr: $90 million for new schools.
MRS DUNNE: I will get to the new schools. Really, I think I will go straight into it and talk about the joke part of the budget. I think the joke part of the budget is the bit that used to be presided over by the Chief Minister when, for a while there, he fancied himself as the minister for the environment.
He talked the talk. Boy, could he talk! He went to the last election with policies about reforming this and doing that and all that sort of thing. But he went to the last election as a laughing stock environment minister because of his position on greenhouse emissions. He said, “Well, we have this strategy, but it is all too expensive and we cannot possibly do anything about it.” He walked away from it.
What we have in this budget in relation to the environment is—absolutely nothing! The most environmental thing that you can find in this budget is the very nice botanical picture that graces the cover. This is the only aspect of this budget that has anything to do with the environment. There is not one significant cent being spent. There are no increases in funding, and this is on top of what I have chronicled as a $6 million decline in spending on the environment in the last three or four years under the stewardship—
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