Page 2180 - Week 06 - Thursday, 26 June 2008
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That is what this budget is about. I look forward to the opposition supporting this expenditure. I think it is important that the health workforce and those that deliver the health services understand that this project will be delivered regardless of what government is in power over the next 10 years. As I said to them today, this is not the Rolls-Royce version. This is what the people of Canberra have been asking for. The data shows that this is where we need to be by 2016 to 2022. I thank members for their support for the bill.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11:17): The minister thinks that because you talk accurately and talk only for a small amount of time that somehow you are embarrassed. We need to go back to this notion that because we had the lowest per capita spending on mental health when we left office that somehow we were not providing an adequate health service. We certainly were. The minister needs to go back and look at the effectiveness measures of that expenditure before she comes in here and rolls out the rhetoric that always comes so glibly off her tongue. She needs to consult with her colleague the former health minister, who got into serious trouble with this Assembly for misrepresenting the numbers in the first term of the Stanhope government. Indeed, it almost cost him a job. He used to come in here and say, “We’ve increased expenditure by this.” The bulk of that increase was administration costs because they changed the arrangements. There were no extra workers on the ground, initially; there was not significant extra expenditure on service; it was an accountant treatment.
This has gone pretty smoothly today; people have kept their speeches short because of agreements that were reached. To then criticise people for speaking for just a short time is most unfortunate.
Ms Gallagher: I just said it was unusual for you.
MR SMYTH: The implied criticism was there. I am happy to take an extra 10 minutes; I am happy to correct the record; I am happy to ask the minister to go back and actually compare whose system was more effective. I think you will find this is the problem with your budget. Just because you are throwing more money at the problems—money in the health system is always welcome—does not mean that you are guaranteed of delivering better services. I will go back to the numbers. When we left office in 2001, the elective surgery waiting list was 3,488 people. It is now closer to 5000, a 40 per cent increase. We were doing an awful lot of operations; we were doing an enormous number of operations. Comparing the system seven years apart is the most lazy approach to validating your budget.
Ms Gallagher: You’re just doing that.
MR SMYTH: No, I am pointing out the fallacy of what you are doing. If you want to do it the simple way, you can do that. But what you have to do is look at what you are getting for your budget. What you are not getting from the budget is the satisfaction levels from the people in Canberra, who know that you are failing them. You are failing the nurses and the staff in the emergency departments who are sick of the sham reforms and the fact that they are not listened to. You are failing the patients of Canberra on the elective surgery waiting list who are bumped constantly. We have
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