Page 1271 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
That is not to blame the staff. We have the greatest admiration for the staff in the circumstances in which they work. The staff continually tell us—particularly the staff at the front line—that the bureaucrats, the department and the minister will not listen to them. That is part of the problem. Chief Minister, perhaps you have stayed around too long in this position, because you think you know it all. The sad reality is that you do not. The staff suffer and patients suffer because of your inability to get the reforms right.
The thing that concerns me now is that, having made great store out of “we have got this $2 billion health plan”—it was $1 billion at one stage but now it appears it is a $2 billion health plan—you cannot find the money to fund it. I have serious concerns about the budget and I have serious concerns about the words you yourself used when you said the other issue was the available capital to the government at this point in time for the future health expenditure.
What is wrong with the state of the revenue that is coming in that you have got concerns about the available capital to the government at this point in time for the future health expenditure? That is right; we have got the rapidly disappearing surplus that just seems to get smaller and smaller and smaller every year as the deficits grow and this government is unable to constrain their spending.
If you have got concerns, Chief Minister, as the person who sits at the head of the table when budget cabinet is on, when cabinet meets every other time that it meets, then I think we all should be concerned. Clearly, what it shows is that you are not in control. If you, as the health minister, are not in control of the health system and the spending there, then we have all got serious problems.
It does beg the question: if we have not got guarantee of capital to the government at this point in time for the future of health expenditure, where is it going to—light rail, perhaps, or any other of the fanciful projects that this government says must be built no matter what the cost? We quizzed the Treasurer on the cost of light rail and he said that there was no price too big. He said that light rail was policy, that it was going ahead.
So we see the problem that this—call it “Green progressive”; call it “transformational”—government has in their inability to constrain their spending. They cannot get it right. They have not got it right. They are not getting it right now and I doubt that they will get it right into the future. We recall the independent study conducted by Deloitte Access Economics, entitled Evaluating ACT hospital development planning. They came to the following conclusion:
As with the ill-fated ACT power station proposal, lack of transparency regarding touted benefits, gross failings in analytical rigour, and inadequacy in consultation processes is not a recipe for consistent, sound policy formulation or for economically and socially desirable outcomes.
This is a government that is not delivering economically and socially desirable outcomes when it comes to the ACT hospital development plan. Now it appears that
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video