Ms FINOCCHIARO - 2012-11-28
Would you please advise the House of the ongoing impact of high-cost unfunded programs accepted by the former Labor government on the basis of no operational funding?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drysdale for the question. Clearly, she has an interest in the finances of the Northern Territory, unlike the former Labor government which stuck everything they could on the credit card and hoped one day they would be out of office and someone would turn up and scratch their heads wondering how to pay the bills, because that is exactly the situation we find ourselves in.
There are some very worthwhile things that the former Labor government committed to, irrespective of the fact that they had no money to pay for them. A couple of examples: the Alice Springs Emergency Department upgrade, a fantastic initiative funded by the federal government in the main, $21m of the $24.9m. The former Territory government put in $3.8m in that upgrade. Good on them. What they did not do was provide a budget for the managing of that emergency department. We have to find $5.5m per year within our budget now because it was never ever budgeted for by the previous Labor government.
Similarly, another very worthwhile project, the Gove Emergency Department upgrade was a $13m project funded by the federal government but with no operational budget considerations by the former government. Last night I mentioned the dialysis bus in Central Australia, and the member for Namatjira and gave support to that concept. Obviously, we want dialysis buses and the like but this bus was funded entirely from the Commonwealth without operational funding - to be picked up by the Territory government with no item in the budget for it. Unbudgeted! There are a swag of these things, so it is not just medi-hotels, it is not just emergency departments, there is a gamut of things that were never funded operationally by the former government.
It was the view of the former government, that whatever Canberra had to offer they would say, ‘Thank you very much’, irrespective of the cost to the Territory. They would never ever stand up for the Territory, they would never strike a deal for the Territory. The former Chief Minister was simply a puppet for federal Labor. In fact, when they banned our live cattle exports the former Chief Minister welcomed it saying it was a circuit breaker that we needed to have…
Well goodness me, what a failure. He would never stand up for the Territory on the carbon tax, he never stood up for the Territory on the McArthur River mine, he has never stood up for the Territory on health, we are $600m short in our health budget…
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Relevance. It was his own Dorothy Dixer on health and he went off on a ranting, rambling tangent because he wants to be the Chief Minister. He is busy knifing Millsy already.
Madam SPEAKER: Opposition Leader. Please be seated. Minister your time has expired.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drysdale for the question. Clearly, she has an interest in the finances of the Northern Territory, unlike the former Labor government which stuck everything they could on the credit card and hoped one day they would be out of office and someone would turn up and scratch their heads wondering how to pay the bills, because that is exactly the situation we find ourselves in.
There are some very worthwhile things that the former Labor government committed to, irrespective of the fact that they had no money to pay for them. A couple of examples: the Alice Springs Emergency Department upgrade, a fantastic initiative funded by the federal government in the main, $21m of the $24.9m. The former Territory government put in $3.8m in that upgrade. Good on them. What they did not do was provide a budget for the managing of that emergency department. We have to find $5.5m per year within our budget now because it was never ever budgeted for by the previous Labor government.
Similarly, another very worthwhile project, the Gove Emergency Department upgrade was a $13m project funded by the federal government but with no operational budget considerations by the former government. Last night I mentioned the dialysis bus in Central Australia, and the member for Namatjira and gave support to that concept. Obviously, we want dialysis buses and the like but this bus was funded entirely from the Commonwealth without operational funding - to be picked up by the Territory government with no item in the budget for it. Unbudgeted! There are a swag of these things, so it is not just medi-hotels, it is not just emergency departments, there is a gamut of things that were never funded operationally by the former government.
It was the view of the former government, that whatever Canberra had to offer they would say, ‘Thank you very much’, irrespective of the cost to the Territory. They would never ever stand up for the Territory, they would never strike a deal for the Territory. The former Chief Minister was simply a puppet for federal Labor. In fact, when they banned our live cattle exports the former Chief Minister welcomed it saying it was a circuit breaker that we needed to have…
Well goodness me, what a failure. He would never stand up for the Territory on the carbon tax, he never stood up for the Territory on the McArthur River mine, he has never stood up for the Territory on health, we are $600m short in our health budget…
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Relevance. It was his own Dorothy Dixer on health and he went off on a ranting, rambling tangent because he wants to be the Chief Minister. He is busy knifing Millsy already.
Madam SPEAKER: Opposition Leader. Please be seated. Minister your time has expired.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016