Page 3063 - Week 07 - Thursday, 30 June 2011
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The Greens believe that the ACT government should have ownership of the Calvary site. The Little Company of Mary does have the lease for another 70 or 80 years, so the issue will possibly come up again. I can say pretty safely that it will. Future governments hopefully will be able to eventually gain ownership of that site.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Treasurer) (7.46): I thank other members for their contributions to this debate. They have spoken about the level of expenditure that is included in this line; it is the largest single directorate spend, of $1.179 billion in this financial year, and growing at a rapid rate. This is one of the most challenging areas of government and, as Mr Hanson says, perhaps one of the most important areas of government.
That is why you see that in this year’s budget the areas of focus continue to be the major areas of demand. It is about additional increased critical care capacity; about increased acute beds across the hospital system; about meeting the operating costs of the expansion of certain services, such as the women’s and children’s hospital; about the increase in demand for elective surgery; and about the fact that demand for our cancer services continues to grow and will continue to grow as our community ages. There is, of course, more money going into chronic disease management.
We can have a discussion about how much of the health budget goes into these particular areas, but in the last couple of budgets in particular there has been a focus on preventive health and chronic disease management. We have also signed up to the national partnership on preventive health. Over the coming years the people of Canberra will see a number of new services rolled out to try and encourage healthy living and healthy lifestyles.
There is some money in the budget—a single line there—for a blood supply plan, again around increased demand for particular services. There is also some money to implement the Assembly’s decision on ACT roadside drug testing, which Health has a role in in terms of analysing samples. We have currently funded the programs that were started as a trial or a pilot program under the parliamentary agreement. The feedback I get, particularly around the forensic mental health court liaison team and also mental health training in relation to Emergency Services staff, has been extremely positive.
The government do provide a gross funding envelope across the forward estimates for the Health portfolio. This is funded at about six per cent per annum. We top up, where we need to, the additional expenditure going into funding, particularly for our public acute services. This year in the Treasurer’s advance, you will see that there was additional expenditure required for the Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital relating to the extra demand they have had in the last six months of the financial year.
In terms of some of the other areas that members have commented on, in particular north-side hospital options, I understood that we released this document with the estimates committee answer around the beds and the make-up of the beds. That is included in the capital costings document, which you should have been provided with, as an attachment to a question. But it is certainly on the website.
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