Page 3896 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007

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going or how it is going to get there. It is in fact a grab bag of suggestions that demonstrate the Stanhope government has no idea of where it is going or what it is doing. Emphasising the lack of strategy underpinning the spending included in this bill is the proposal for a residential facility for alcohol and drug rehabilitation. The concept of the facility is excellent; the problem is that it became a political football once it got into the hands of the Chief Minister, the interfering hands of the Chief Minister.

Members will all remember the extraordinary debate between Mr Seselja and the Chief Minister earlier this year in the estimates hearing over Kama. So what do we have now? We still do not have a site for the facility, we have got funding of $0.7 million being appropriated this year and a total budget that has been estimated at $11 million—and for what? What is it—budgeting by ouija board? This is all for a facility that has no home, so we do not know about site costs.

As Mrs Dunne pointed out, when it comes to site costs you have only got to look at Harrison primary, where the landscaping budget has blown out by more than $1 million—because this government does not know how to budget. So we have no idea whether there are any issues with foundations, access roads, provisions of services and so on—and yet the Chief Minister is clever enough to tell us that this project, sight unseen, will cost us $11 million: “Let’s just make it up.” This is the kind of sloppy planning that characterises the Stanhope government.

If we examine the detail of proposals in this bill to reinforce my views on the nature of this bill, I can judge that there is one and only one proposal that merits the description of being urgent, and that is the spending on the response to the equine influenza outbreak. None of us expected it, nobody saw it coming: it is urgent spending. In that regard you could have used the Treasurer’s advance for it. I wonder whether the Treasurer would consider that—or is he hoarding the Treasurer’s advance for late next year as we get much closer to the election?

There is another proposal that could warrant funding from the Treasurer’s advance, and that is funds for the Civic petrol plume. I say this because we have to assume it is a recent development. I remember it, and you probably remember it, as a kid growing up in Canberra, when the old Civic Theatre blew up. It has been there for a long time, but if it has destabilised or deteriorated in some way then of course it should be covered in that way. Apart from that, the bill is a grab bag. There is no strategy here. It is a shame that worthy projects are being mired in this process by this government. (Time expired.)

MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Disability and Community Services, Minister for Women) (5.27): I welcome the opportunity to speak today about the elements that cover my portfolio, particularly in health. This is the first opportunity that I have been given to talk about them. For some reason that I cannot really understand, the public accounts committee did not call me at estimates for either of my areas to discuss any of these proposals. There was no request made of my office for ACT Health or for the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services, which also had an initiative there, under homelessness, for the extension of the homelessness shelter.


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