Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Hansard source

I am just amazed at Senator Boyce's criticism of what the federal government is doing in the mental health area. If I were Senator Boyce I would be congratulating the Labor government and Wayne Swan on his budget, but more particularly a very good friend of mine from South Australia: Minister Butler, , the member for Port Adelaide. He has done all of the things that your government did not do in 11 or 12 years in government. He has made a commitment to mental health and to resolving an area that was left untouched by the 11 or 12 years of Liberal government. That is not the only thing that we have done in the area of health, and I would like to go through some of the things that our government have done. Obviously we want to get the budget back into the black, but there are other priority issues that we are dealing with, and health is one of those. I know, Mr Deputy President, you will be interested to know some of the very many good things that the Labor government are doing in the area of health and hospital funding, and I would like to go through some of those. South Australia will benefit through the investment in the Health and Hospitals Fund. The first area is $3.3 million to establish five surgery public dental clinics on the grounds of the Wallaroo Hospital and Health Services. You will be interested in that, I know, Mr Deputy President, because of your close connection with the Yorke Peninsula. There will be $6 million to establish a new oral health centre at the Berri Hospital campus in the Riverland. The Riverland, as you know, has suffered very badly during the period of the drought; it has even had some more bad news in recent times with a lot of the bad weather destroy­ing wine crops up there, so this will be good news for it. There will be $26.7 million to redevelop the health services in Mount Gambier—again, the south-east of South Australia getting a benefit out of our Health and Hospital Fund.

Another area that will benefit from our budget decisions to improve the health of Australians is that there will be $39.2 million for the redevelopment of the Port Lincoln Hospital and Health Service. Another area is $2.3 million to construct four new two-bedroom staff houses and visitor centres in the Pitjantjatjara areas for their communities. There will be $3.5 million for purchase of land and construction of the new purpose-built ambulance station at Mount Gambier. I know that today there are a number of people from the ambulance services in Canberra, so they will be very pleased with that, as will the people of Mount Gambier. There will be $1.3 million to establish a new medical clinic on the grounds of the Naracoorte Hospital. So all of these things are things that we are doing in addition to what we are doing in the area of mental health.

As I said, the budget is all about bringing the economy back into surplus, and that is the objective of the budget. We obviously want to spread the opportunities of the mining boom. One of the things that have not got that much attention in recent weeks, of course, is the visit by the Minister for Defence, Minister Smith, and the Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister Fer­guson, up to Woomera, where of course the federal government is opening significant portions of land which were previously restricted because of defence requirements. I know Senator Feeney has been very supportive of the proposal to allow mining to go on in those areas.