Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

GOVERNMENT: ELECTION COMMITMENTS
1610 COUNCIL Wednesday, 1 June 2011
people and to confirm the time frame in which those
projects will be delivered. They are in the never-never.
The biggest item among the commitments that have
been made on the projects that I have listed — and I
could repeat those projects many times over — is the
Bendigo commitment. When does that $20 million get
acquitted? That $20 million, which is the biggest single
item of health expenditure that appears in this budget, is
lined up to be spent in 2014–15. This government is
clearly getting on with the job of delivering its health
commitments, isn’t it! No, that was an ironic statement.
This government is clearly not committed to delivering
those projects. It is clearly relying on the people of
Victoria to accept the spin and hyperbole we hear time
and again from government members. Government
members are relying on the people of Victoria giving
them the benefit of the doubt that they will eventually
get around to satisfying those undertakings and
delivering on their rhetoric. Their rhetoric was very
clear: they will improve the situation and deliver better
outcomes for people.
If they are not prepared to bring forward expenditure,
more resources and more support for the health sector
alone, how on earth can they expect those outcomes to
be delivered? Page 112 of budget paper 3 outlines the
new output initiatives for the health portfolio this year.
If we look at the table on that page and look at how
much new money has come into the health budget,
which is the area I am concentrating on in my
contribution today, we see that the election
commitments that will be funded by the government in
this financial year total $74 million. If we look at the
savings figure that is going to be introduced in the
health portfolio by this government this year, we see
that the savings are $115.3 million.
In its budget the government is crowing about the fact
that the savings figure in health this year will be
$115.3 million in total, but the election commitments
that it is funding total only $74 million. The
government’s rhetoric is that more resources are
coming into the health portfolio and that the
government is prepared to support its commitments and
deliver better outcomes, but how on earth does the
government expect any Victorian citizen to believe,
after comparing these budget papers to the rhetoric, that
pulling out $40 million more in savings than the
government puts into its election commitments is going
to deliver better health outcomes for the people of
Victoria?
It is not surprising that the Victorian Minister for Health
has this week been on a personal jihad to try to prevent
the commonwealth introducing greater accountability
structures for health administration across Australia.
The Australian government invests significantly in
health and has high expectations of better service
delivery and better patient outcomes, which is
something that rhetorically the Victorian government
agrees with. The Victorian government was very happy
to come back to Victoria after signing the national
health agreement and immediately crow about what a
great deal it was. There are many ways in which it was
a good deal. In fact I have joined others across Victoria
in affording my congratulations on a good outcome,
and I have very high expectations about the potential
for those outcomes to bring about better quality care for
Victorian patients.
The extraordinary thing about it, however, is that ever
since the Victorian government representatives came
back and crowed about their successes in terms of being
great negotiators, they have been crying poor and
shifting the blame and responsibility to the
commonwealth for the failings of the health system.
They are now trying to wriggle out of the accountability
frameworks the commonwealth is going to establish.
Why might this be the case? The extraordinary truth has
not been refuted by the Minister for Health at either the
Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearing or
in this chamber. On a number of occasions he has been
asked the simple question of whether Victoria spends
all the money that comes to it from the commonwealth
that is intended for health portfolio spending, and the
health minister has not denied the assertion implied in
that question. In fact in his actions he has confirmed
that assertion.
When asked at the Public Accounts and Estimates
Committee hearing the question of whether Victoria
spends all the money the commonwealth gives it for
health on health, the Minister for Health said he could
not guarantee that but that he was an advocate for it.
Talk about being condemned by your own words and
your own inability to deliver better outcomes for the
health system and health patients in Victoria! It is not
surprising then that the minister chooses to complain
about the accountability requirements of the
commonwealth and engage in a misdirection in terms
of public commentary about the establishment of a
commonwealth health bureaucracy rather than confront
the fundamental truth that Victoria does not spend on
health all the money the commonwealth allocates to it
for health purposes. That is very clear and is patently
obvious to us. It comes off the back of this budget. The
government is taking more savings out of the health
portfolio than the value of the election commitments
that were made.