Page 258 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 2008
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MRS BURKE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, given the Chief Minister’s statement that we will judge him and his ministers on their ability to deliver on pledges, how can you expect Canberrans to take you seriously on your ability to deliver on your own pledges to fix the public hospital system emergency department? Will you now table this up-to-date information that you have referred to?
MS GALLAGHER: That information will be tabled in accordance with the requirements that we have. There are places—
Mr Smyth: Table it then.
Mrs Dunne: Be open and accountable like Jon Stanhope said you would be.
MS GALLAGHER: There are arrangements in place to table that information. I see no reason to make that available to the opposition to misconstrue and bag the public hospital system any earlier than they will get it. The one thing the Canberra community believes in is that this government can manage health, that this government has a plan for the future. The only thing they do know is not to vote like their lives depend on it for that team over there. They promised 100 beds without anywhere to put the beds, without any patients to put in the beds or staff to look after them.
Mr Smyth: You couldn’t even manage a car park. You couldn’t manage a car park.
MR SPEAKER: Come back to the subject matter of the question, please.
Mr Pratt: Why don’t you table the information? Why are you hiding the information?
MR SPEAKER: Mr Pratt, cease interjecting.
MS GALLAGHER: It was around pledges and your ability to deliver a health system for the people of the ACT. We have increased our expenditure on health by 60 per cent since coming to government.
Mr Smyth: And you couldn’t run a car park.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, I warn you.
MS GALLAGHER: We have 147 new beds after you guys cut 114 of them. We have regained administrative area in the hospitals—which you turned into admin area—to create wards and capacity for patients to be seen. We have increased the number of doctors. We have built an ANU medical school. We have settled every single industrial agreement without dispute, which is something that you guys could not do. We have funded $34 million of elective surgery to deliver 3,000 more procedures a year than you guys ever did. We have filled the gap which was left when the commonwealth money which propped up your government ran out in 2001 under the cuts program. We have filled that. We have opened two new operating theatres. We have extended operating hours. We have invested in the emergency department. We are dealing with numbers of separations and presentations to the hospital that you
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