Page 1174 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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increase in demand for inpatient services. Over the last four years the government has provided almost $22 million in funding for additional elective surgery throughput.
Mental health expenditure—one of those issues of health expenditure that is to the eternal shame of the Liberal Party in the ACT—has increased by 97 per cent over the last five years, from the lowest in Australia. One of the most appalling legacies of the previous government was the lowest per capita expenditure on mental health in Australia. We have responded to that by increasing mental health expenditure by 97 per cent.
When the Liberals rail about this flood of GST money, they refuse to acknowledge or accept that the money has gone into education, the money has gone into health, the money has gone into mental health, the money has gone into disability services, to close the gap that we inherited from you.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Chief Minister, you have circulated an amendment. Do you want to move that?
MR STANHOPE: Yes. I move:
Omit all words after paragraph 1(b), substitute:
“(c) and commends the ACT Government for its commitment to responsible financial management that will ensure the sustainable delivery of high quality services to the people of Canberra.”.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.49): I am not going to support either the motion or Mr Stanhope’s amendment. Mr Mulcahy’s motion is a traditional one, after the federal budget and just before the ACT budget. I think it reflects the ACT’s position in relation to the federal government. The federal government and the ACT government are yoked together, rather like a parent with a child that cannot leave home despite the child’s burning desire for independence simply because it cannot afford to and because the rules that were set up within the family have made it impossible for the child to make it on its own.
The territory is totally reliant on the commonwealth for the greater bulk of its income, but responsible for providing those areas of service which most closely affect our citizens. Therefore, when schools do not work, it is easy for citizens not to look beyond the ACT government. I have been very critical of the ACT government’s commitment to the community school in the context of the closures last year. The government does not look to the funding formula that makes it so hard to maintain a good public school education. I do believe that this government does have a commitment to public education, although I am not sure that it goes about it the right way.
I suspect that Mr Mulcahy would not be so rosy-eyed about a federal Liberal government if he were the Treasurer of the ACT government. The friction that is inherent within the relationship between the territory and the commonwealth is not just because of party politics. It is because of the way the territory was set up. There is an inherent economic and political imbalance in the way self-government for the ACT
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