Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

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QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 1694 COUNCIL Thursday, 2 June 2011 Mr FINN — I advise Mr Pakula that without small businesses taking the risks they do, his union members would not have jobs, and that is the biggest and most important point. It is one thing that members of the Labor Party just do not seem to be able to understand — that is, without business and without a strong private sector, there would be no jobs. Labor members come into this chamber and, as we heard this morning, bash the private sector and put forward proposals that would harm the private sector. There is no understanding of the importance of the private sector not just to the Australian economy but indeed for the jobs of the union members who they claim to represent. I will conclude my brief comments at this point, because I understand there is another speaker to come. I sincerely hope that members opposite will deeply consider what I have had to say, because small business is an important part of this state and this country. Mr ELASMAR (Northern Metropolitan) — Oddly enough it was the Kennett coalition government that revoked the Show Day public holiday in Victoria. I say ‘oddly’ because Show Day was the farmers’ opportunity to showcase their wares and to demonstrate the importance of rural communities to the urban-bred population. It was probably the children who enjoyed themselves the most at the show. Between the farm animals, the show bags and carnival rides it was a wonderful family outing, and I remember taking my own children to enjoy the fun. Show Day goes back to 1884. Originally it was a half-day holiday, but later a full-day holiday was proclaimed. The Show Day public holiday continued until 1994 when Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett, without regard to his coalition partners or their constituencies, brought the axe down by repealing the public holiday. This meant that many families could not afford to take the day off work, so the children missed out and the farmers missed out as well. Show Day attendance fell sharply and it has never truly recovered. This bill gives nothing and only seeks to rob Peter to pay Paul. The whole point of having a show day is missing. To simply substitute Melbourne Cup Day or part thereof is a miserable attempt to hoodwink the rural population into thinking that this government is actually redressing show day inequities in rural Victoria. The bill is petty and mean-spirited. Non-metropolitan councils are being given the authority to determine which public holiday its workers can take. It is either/or, but not both — Melbourne Cup Day or show day. This bill treats rural Victoria as — — Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Children: Take a Break program Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — My question is for the Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development. The minister, at the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings, confirmed that the Take a Break occasional child-care program would be defunded after 31 December this year, leaving many families, particularly young families in rural and regional Victoria, without access to affordable community-based occasional child care so they can undertake employment, family shopping, study and other activities. In towns like Swifts Creek, where the local community will be forced to discontinue its occasional child-care program without funding assistance, what will her government do to ensure that Victorian families in regional areas are able to access occasional child care? Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I am glad that the shadow minister has asked a question about the Take a Break occasional child-care funding, because as the shadow minister should be well aware, child care is a federal government funding responsibility. We also need to look at the history of this particular program. This program was originally funded on a 70 per cent commonwealth-30 per cent state basis. The state indexed its funding and increased that proportion of funding, but by far the bulk of the funding was commonwealth funding because child care is a federal government responsibility. As part of its budget last year the federal government withdrew its funding in the middle of May, which would have meant that services would close on 30 June 2010. The former state government allocated additional funding to allow the Take a Break program to continue for one year, but the then minister, Maxine Morand, made it very clear that that funding was for one year only and was to provide an opportunity for communities and families to find alternative care. The way she did that was to bring forward funding from the 2011–12 budget to provide for services in 2010–11. Funding that should have been available to us this year to continue to fund that program was taken out of the budget and used last year to fund services to get us past a federal election and a state election. Hon. D. M. Davis — It was a funny money deal. Hon. W. A. LOVELL — It was a funny money deal by the former government. As soon as I became the minister I wrote to the federal minister for child
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Thursday, 2 June 2011 COUNCIL 1695 care, Kate Ellis, asking her to reinstate federal funding for a federal area of responsibility. I am still waiting for an answer to that letter. She has not even responded, and she showed in the federal budget that she was not prepared to continue to fund this program. If the shadow minister wants this program to continue, she should join with the coalition government and lobby her federal counterparts to reinstate funding for occasional child care, which is a federal government responsibility. Supplementary question Ms MIKAKOS (Northern Metropolitan) — Last week, on 26 May, Premier Baillieu was asked a question about the withdrawal of funding for the Take a Break occasional child-care program. He seemed to imply in his answer that the program had been scrapped because of a lack of scrutiny. Can the minister advise the house what the problem was with the quality of the care offered under the Take a Break program, and will she publicly release the KPMG report that reviewed this program? Hon. W. A. LOVELL (Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development) — I think I gave a fairly comprehensive response in my substantive answer, and I have nothing further to add. Hospitals: performance data Mrs PEULICH (South Eastern Metropolitan) — My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health, who is also the Minister for Ageing, the Honourable David Davis, and I ask: will the minister inform the house of any new — — Honourable members interjecting. The PRESIDENT — Order! Mrs Peulich obviously has a cold or something that is making it difficult for her. She is not being assisted by members of the chamber. She has the call. I want to hear what she has to say and, particularly given the voice issue that she has today, I would have thought a little bit more respect ought to be accorded to the member. Mrs PEULICH — Thank you, President, for your protection, and my apologies for the laryngitis. Mr Jennings interjected. Mrs PEULICH — I did catch the germs from Lee Tarlamis, so — — Honourable members interjecting. Mrs PEULICH — I am not sure who is more red-faced — Mr Tarlamis or me! My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health and Minister for Ageing, the Honourable David Davis, and I ask: will the minister inform the house of any new data that indicates how the Victorian health system is performing and how the Baillieu government is improving health system performance? I have a vital interest in this. Hon. D. M. DAVIS (Minister for Health) — I thank the member for her question, and I can see that she will need to use the health system at some point quite soon — and I wish her a speedy recovery. But in answer to her substantive question, what is very clear is that the data released yesterday for the period 1 July to 31 December shows that the Victorian health system was not performing well under the previous government. What is more, additional data has been released — data that has never before been released formally and data that reflects directly on the hospital and health system. I have got to say that this was a cover-up by the previous government and by the previous health minister, who is now the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly — a minister who refused to tell the truth about the Victorian health system. Why did he not release the list of hospital-initiated postponements? Hon. M. P. Pakula — Who is paying your legal bills? The PRESIDENT — Order! Mr Pakula’s interjection was far too robust. The minister will continue through the Chair, and perhaps Mr Pakula will not find it necessary to be quite so robust. Hon. D. M. DAVIS — We also released data on the number of emergency department mental health patients who waited longer than 8 hours for admission, the number of emergency department patients with a length of stay greater than 24 hours, ambulance attendances and the proportion of ambulance transfers that were over 40 minutes, individual hospital category 4 and 5 emergency department data and the number of bed days a patient is waiting in major metropolitan health services for residential aged-care assessments. These were all datasets that were kept secret by the previous government — information that we will release routinely into the future, information that should be in the public domain, information that will assist hospitals and the system to plan and information that will enable better performance. It is information that the
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PARLIAMENT OF VICTORIA PARLIAMENTAR
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Legislative Council committees Priv
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TUESDAY, 31 MAY 2011 ROYAL ASSENT..
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WRITTEN ADJOURNMENT RESPONSES TUESD
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314. Sport and recreation: sporting
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QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 1530 COUNC
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MEMBERS STATEMENTS 1538 COUNCIL Tue
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PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS 1636 COUNCI
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AUSTRALIAN SYNCHROTRON: FUNDING 163
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