It’s unfortunate. I’ve heard a lot since we started this session, an awful lot about, well, it wasn’t a priority at the beginning of the 17th so we can’t do anything about it, and that’s starting to wear on me a lot. I appreciate that the department has a lot of work to do and that they are doing a lot of work, and I know that they have staff who are working very hard, and I appreciate that staff are doing good work, and I wish that to be known. But there are an awful lot of things which suddenly seem to be not a priority and there are an awful lot of things which suddenly seem to want to be pushed off to the 18th Assembly, and there are
still a lot of months left in this 17th Assembly. I’m
struggling with the attitude which seems to be getting more and more prevalent that we can’t do it because we’re in the last year and we’ve got to put things off to the 18th .
The figure that the Minister mentioned of some $4 million-plus, that’s not the number that I remember from the working group that went through a very extensive review of supplementary health benefits. I don’t remember that it was that huge a number. It was actually reasonably minimal if I recall. We may be talking apples and oranges when we talk about costs, so I’ll just leave that one at that, but I would hope that, I guess to the Minister but also to all Ministers, that just because it wasn’t identified as a priority doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done. I appreciate that the Minister wants to get it done. I appreciate that he’s willing to put a priority on it for transition, but I still think we have residents who are not being treated fairly.
I will ask a question. I will ask a different question. Thank you for indulging me.
I asked this earlier and I’m now on the right page so I am going to ask it again. The air ambulance contract that was recently signed was a very large increase in cost from the previous contract that we had for the air ambulance contract. I guess what I would like to know is at the outset what is it in this new contract, what benefits are we gaining that are worth the $4.5 million or $5 million increase that we are having to bear?