Page 2122 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 May 2009
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Let me turn to the issues in the budget, the facts in the budget that cover the portfolios that I have responsibility for—health, police, corrections and Indigenous affairs. It is clear that this government lacks a plan. The only plan it does have is to continue on with business as usual, to spend, spend and spend. It is a budget that is haunted by lack of vision and unidentified savings.
In terms of health, the most substantive of the portfolios that I have responsibility for in terms of the number of dollars allocated to it in the budget, we have now had almost a billion dollars poured into what seems like a black hole of spending, with very little vision and very little planning for the future.
I have spoken before in this place of the appalling state of many of the key facets of our health system—of bed occupancy rates, elective surgery, emergency departments, GP numbers, access blocks and declining rates of radiotherapy. These are all key indicators of the state of our health system as it stands, a health system that is clearly struggling.
Yet again in this budget, we see aspirational targets articulated which are well below those that are accepted nationally by all of the national bodies. These are not just aspirational targets that are numbers; these are actually people’s lives, translating the figures in the budget papers into the trauma that people are suffering in our hospitals and out in the community as they struggle in what is a failing health system. Indeed, according to budget paper 4, our already diabolical waiting times for categories 4 and 5 in our emergency departments are set to decline even further, despite the vast amounts of money—taxpayer money—that have been poured into our ailing health system.
That is the current state of our system. It is ignoring the impending tsunami of health demand that is descending upon us. By 2032 our population will increase by 67,000 people and the demographic of 65-plus will represent approximately 25 per cent of the population. By 2022 the increase in demand will be at about 50 per cent across our hospitals. If we are struggling to keep up in a failing system now, with the demand that we face, how on earth are we going to keep up with that, based on the lack of planning and lack of vision that we see in this budget?
This government has a single plan, basically—the capital asset development plan, which is focused very much on the building of infrastructure. When we look at the government’s track record on the building of infrastructure, we can see how appalling it is and how unlikely it is that its plan will be realised. We have already heard about the GDE and its failures there. You have heard me speak at length about the Alexander Maconochie Centre and the failure to deliver that project on time, on budget or within scope.
I look forward to the opening of hospitals in the ACT and the elements of our hospital redevelopment—no doubt well before they are actually ready to receive patients and well before they are ready to receive staff, and probably just in advance of an election.
There are already many aspects of the capital asset development plan that are failing. The car park, which was meant to cost $29 million, has now gone up to $45 million. It
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