Page 3211 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 18 October 2006
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training. However, in 2005-06 the amount is $1,752,000 over $697 million, or 0.25 of one per cent. There has been a nine per cent reduction in real terms on their commitment to education and training.
Ms MacDonald has come in here and moved a motion which says, “Oh what a good job we are doing.” She pats the government on the back and says, “Gee, look at us,” and quotes a number of positions. Yes, the positions are there but they are delivering less. On a two-year comparison, this government has committed less money to ACT Health for the tertiary education of all of our health professionals. We know that the situation will get tougher in the current financial year because they are winding back on it yet again. Ms MacDonald gets up here and moves a motion to recognise the Stanhope Labor government’s continued commitment to investing in tertiary health education. However, I do not see how a reduction in hours of 14 per cent, a drop of 43 per cent in attendances and nine per cent less of the health budget being spent on education are a continuing commitment.
We forget that we have a partner in health. I looked in vain for references in the motion to the commonwealth government and what they might have done. I expected Ms MacDonald to jump up and claim that her government had set up the medical school. But if you want to see real commitment to education, and tertiary education in particular, you should look at what the commonwealth has done. I will not go through what has been done during the 10 years of the Howard government; I will just go through the last couple of years. I have an undated press release entitled “The New National Priorities” which informs us that the commonwealth government has reduced the fees charged in nursing. So there you go: the commonwealth government has reduced the fees in nursing.
Let us talk about tertiary places, let us talk about tertiary education—for the benefit of Ms MacDonald, that means education at the universities. In January 2004 the ANU medical school received a $2 million boost to enable trainee doctors to receive advanced training in information and communications technology. This, of course, will be of great assistance in the future. Someone in a different city will be able to view a scan of some description or indeed track a patient’s medication. Just recently, in July 2006, extra places were made available. And how did the ACT fare? The Australian National University got 13 new places, 10 of which are for clinical psychology. The University of Canberra got 15 new places to establish 15 master’s degrees in clinical psychology. The Australian Catholic University at the Watson campus picked up 50 bachelor of nursing places—I was at the launch of that with the minister—and the University of Canberra picked up 40 general nursing places.
It is interesting that we do not have any reference in the motion to the Howard government. That being the case, I will do the right thing and move the amendments that have been circulated in my name. Mr Speaker, I seek leave to move amendments Nos 1 and 2 together.
Leave granted.
MR SMYTH: I move:
“(1) subparagraph 1 (a), omit ‘medical’, substitute ‘health’; and
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