Ms CARTER - 2003-05-28
Yesterday, your acting CEO, Dr David Ashbridge, sent out an e-mail message to staff advising them that he considered the health budget yesterday to be tough, and warning them that there will be a need to disinvest from health programs. Can you tell Territorians which health programs are going to be cut?
ANSWER:
Madam Speaker, I thank the honourable member for her question. In this budget, there is an increase of $14.2m to the health sector. This is an excellent situation for this portfolio. We are in quite difficult times regarding the overall amount of extra spending this government has been able to put into this coming year’s budget. This is an excellent outcome for this portfolio.
The budget comes on top of an increase of $15m into this portfolio earlier this year. At the beginning of the current financial year, the budget for health was $527m. It has now gone up to $561m, an increase of $34m, which is a 5.5% increase over this year’s spending. The opposition is raising all sorts of problems here. There is absolutely no question that my department will continue to implement financial management, together with audit and budget reforms. This is not new.
In February this year, we announced that there would be a different form of budgeting and auditing in my department, that there would be new ways of managing the financial situation. We will be getting the whole budget under control. This kind of thing does not happen over a short period of time, so naturally, there will be continued efficiencies throughout our portfolio.
That is what Territorians would expect of us. They expect that every dollar that goes into this portfolio is spent properly. We had this situation in the past. Every year, this budget would blow out ridiculously. We said that this is going to stop and that is what we are doing now. We are working towards having very good financial management in my department, and part of that is making sure that it is as efficient as possible. We had $15m go in earlier this year, and $14.2m now, which is an excellent result.
ANSWER:
Madam Speaker, I thank the honourable member for her question. In this budget, there is an increase of $14.2m to the health sector. This is an excellent situation for this portfolio. We are in quite difficult times regarding the overall amount of extra spending this government has been able to put into this coming year’s budget. This is an excellent outcome for this portfolio.
The budget comes on top of an increase of $15m into this portfolio earlier this year. At the beginning of the current financial year, the budget for health was $527m. It has now gone up to $561m, an increase of $34m, which is a 5.5% increase over this year’s spending. The opposition is raising all sorts of problems here. There is absolutely no question that my department will continue to implement financial management, together with audit and budget reforms. This is not new.
In February this year, we announced that there would be a different form of budgeting and auditing in my department, that there would be new ways of managing the financial situation. We will be getting the whole budget under control. This kind of thing does not happen over a short period of time, so naturally, there will be continued efficiencies throughout our portfolio.
That is what Territorians would expect of us. They expect that every dollar that goes into this portfolio is spent properly. We had this situation in the past. Every year, this budget would blow out ridiculously. We said that this is going to stop and that is what we are doing now. We are working towards having very good financial management in my department, and part of that is making sure that it is as efficient as possible. We had $15m go in earlier this year, and $14.2m now, which is an excellent result.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016