Page 2444 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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I think it is also a great example of where a government has strayed away from what the people actually want, what the people need, what the priorities of the government should be, towards the priorities of a self-indulgent government that has been around just too long. After 15 years, it is very clear that what drives this government is its own agenda, its own priorities—those of maintaining government with the Greens. It is much more about parliamentary deals and maintaining power and legacy projects for Mr Corbell and others than it is about the needs of mums and dads and retirees across this city.
Our priorities very much are in health, in education, in growing the economy and building the city. Each of us will speak to those areas as we progress through the budget. But it is the executive that sets the parameters. It is the executive that makes the decisions, or should be making the decisions—the right decisions for the people of Canberra. It is an executive in many ways that has failed the people of Canberra.
I turn to some of the issues at stake. I will talk in much more detail during our consideration of the other line items. However, when we look at our health system, it is a health system that is in many ways in crisis. We saw recently critical notices being put in by the staff at the women and children’s hospital because they do not have enough staff. We know that this is a government that was proposing an $800 million rebuild of the Canberra Hospital. It pulled that money out to pay for its tram. This is a health system that is struggling to cope. It is the people of Canberra that pay the price when they wait in ED longer than anyone else in Australia.
Equally, what we are seeing is kids in our schools being left behind. Just as you, Madam Deputy Speaker, cut $15 million from the police budget, I remind members that it was Mr Barr who cut 23 local public schools when he was the education minister. As a consequence, what we are now finding is that many of our public schools are over capacity, are bursting at the seams and are under enormous pressure. The pressure was so great that we saw the horrific images, under your leadership, Madam Deputy Speaker, as the education minister, of a child locked in a cage. It is just terrible to think that that is happening in our education system.
I am very proud that the Canberra Liberals have announced an $85 million education package which will address those in need, kids with special needs, not just in the government system but in the non-government system, those in highest need in our four specialised schools, and $60 million to support infrastructure across our public school system where we know there are significant capacity constraints. I am very proud that we have made that announcement.
I find it incongruous that we have seen the criticism from the Labor government about Liberal Party expenditure proposals and policy proposals in health and in education. We get this bizarre scare campaign. We have seen the counter narrative, the odd narrative, from Mr Barr. In one breath almost he is accusing us of reckless spending on health and education and then he is saying that we are the architects of austerity; that we are not going to spend anything. If you are going to run scare campaigns, I would say that you need to work out what that narrative is going to be. Are we
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