Wednesday, 31 August 2022

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2022–23 Budget Estimates

Ms STALEY (Ripon) (10:05): Today I rise to speak on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee Report on the 2022–23 Budget Estimates that was tabled yesterday. I am particularly interested, in reading this report, in chapter 3, which is the Department of Health report, and the minority report. These two things are in fact linked. When we go to page 29, section 3.2, for the Department of Health, it says:

However, compared to the 2021–22 revised budget, the 2022–23 Budget represents a decrease of $2 billion (7.5%) in funding.

The report further goes on to say that the Department of Health’s:

… output appropriations are budgeted as $12.6 billion for 2022–23, a decrease of $2.5 billion (16.5%) compared to the 2021–22 revised budget.

…

DH’s 2022–23 Budget for other operating expenses of $7.6 billion declined by $2 billion (21.2%) compared to the 2021–22 revised budget.

And the PAEC committee, in finding 20, says:

The 2022–23 Budget for the Department of Health ... represents a 7.5% reduction from its 2021–22 revised budget …

Why is this important? Let us start with the fact that the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee is a Labor-dominated committee. This is a government majority committee with a government chair and a government majority. And this committee has found—finding 20—that the 2022–23 budget for the Department of Health represents a 7.5 per cent reduction from its 2021–22 revised budget. The minority members of this committee agree with this. They have put in a minority report, and they say that they:

… support the majority report and note that it has highlighted areas for budget improvement, including around transparency and clarity of reporting.

However, why they have particularly put in a minority report is that, and I will read from their report:

The minority is concerned by the propensity of the Premier and his Ministers to simply deny the facts when presented them as written in the budget papers. This trend has grown in recent inquiries.

It then has a quote from Hansard that goes directly to the question of health funding, where the member for Gippsland South, who is in the chamber and is a member of PAEC, asked the Premier about these cuts to the health budget. He asked him directly and gave him the chapter and verse—the page number where these cuts appear. The Premier came back and said there is no cut to the health budget. Well, the government’s own people say there is a cut to the health budget. I mean, this government cannot even get it own lines right if the budget papers say, which they do in black and white, this government has cut $2 billion from the health budget.

They are a government, I might add, that is out there at the moment saying that they can do transport and they can do health—they can do them both. They are cutting the health budget by billions of dollars when we have got tens of thousands of people—up 70 per cent since March 2020—on elective surgery waiting lists and when we have got people dying because an ambulance does not turn up. What does this government do? It goes and cuts the health budget by $2 billion. Then the leadership of this government seeks to deny the truth. They seek to say that black is white, that what is in the budget paper is not the truth in some way. In fact the Premier went on to say that it was a ridiculous suggestion. His own committee members can find the truth—because it is in the budget papers—that in fact the government has cut the health budget. This is an outrageous thing to happen in the middle of a pandemic when we are just coming through that and with all the health crises that we have now. And what do they do? They go and cut the health budget. The PAEC report proves it. It is time the government leadership owned up to it.