MAYBE we’ll finally see some fire in the belly for the ACT election. 

The light rail has dominated the debate until now with the Liberals’ Deputy Leader Alistair Coe spending years chipping away at Labor and Green credibility. The issue of rising rates has had some impact. Now health has become a bidding war.

On the day the ACT government went into caretaker mode, Labor announced, if re-elected, “it would spend $650 million on upgrading and expanding a number of different areas of the Canberra Hospital”.

A new $500 million building at the Canberra Hospital is included with an expanded women’s and children’s facility. Assistant Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris explained what this “means is if you’re scheduled to have knee replacement surgery, you will have it on that day and date”.

This announcement was designed to counter the Liberals’ hospital bid of $395 million. Opposition Leader Jeremy Hanson announced in August that using the money from cancelling the light rail project would “enhance critical care over the next decade” with a new building to provide a “92-bed, 21st century emergency department” along with a “new 48-bed intensive care unit” as well as a “new 25-bed emergency medical unit” and “capacity” for 20 new operating theatres.

Labor fired a significant volley in the bidding war to demonstrate Labor’s commitment to investment in health care. Health Minister Simon Corbell announced, as the Budget passed through the Assembly, that around $1.6 billion a year, a third of the entire Budget, is now committed to health services.

Minister Corbell trumpeted at the time an additional spending of $237 million in new funding including ”$139 million for more nurses, more doctors and more allied health professionals”. This amounts to “170 new health staff over four years including 22 more doctors, 91 more nurses and 34 more allied health professionals”. Additionally, a $50million commitment over four years to mental health.

In the first attempt at countering the Liberal’s plan to use light rail money to build new hospitals, the Labor government announced capital works investments in the Budget of over “$100 million for improvements at Canberra Hospital, Calvary Hospital and other health buildings to ensure they meet the future health needs of our community”.

There was also an appeal to Labor’s philosophical heartland in the Budget. Apart from the top-up of mental health funding, was the announcement of $11 million for the “most vulnerable” in our community including funding for drug and blood-borne, infection-related services and support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Another health bid of $650 million would come a month later.

The Liberals have not given much quarter. Even before Labor announced the $650 million injection, they were promising two new hospitals in the electorates of Yerrabi (Gungahlin) and Brindabella (Tuggeranong).

Described as “Local Public Hospitals” they are really enhanced emergency response facilities that can handle all but the most serious emergencies. Both hospitals are planned to have 10 beds in an operation/emergency department and 12 short-stay beds. Jeremy Hanson presented this idea within the frame of “Andrew Barr’s focus is a tram” and “my focus is health”.

Both sides have moved beyond buildings. The Liberals are offering 52 new nurses, increased funding for security at the Canberra and Calvary Hospitals and “Frontline Assaults” legislation to protect nurses, doctors, ED staff, police and other emergency services personnel. Labor has fired back with a proposed “Surgical Procedures, Interventional Radiology and Emergency (SPIRE) Centre that would feature a new emergency department, elective and day surgery spaces with more than 1200 staff”. They have lifted the bid on the Budget estimates regarding increased numbers of doctors, nurses and allied health staff.

The next bid ought to be on prevention. What are all candidates going to do to address diet-related disease and the harm associated with misuse of alcohol and smoking? Both major parties have resisted lock-out laws with no reference to the evidence.

The recently released Chief Health Officer’s report states “while the rate of Canberrans who smoke has decreased from 21 per cent (in 1995) to 10 per cent (in 2014), the rate of adults who are overweight or obese has increased from 40 per cent (in 1995) to 63 per cent (in 2014)”. Nutrition and fitness issues remain key to prevention while continued campaigns on the dangers of smoking are critical.

With a month to go before the election, both sides are locked in a bidding war on health, but it should be about more than hospitals, doctors and nurses. Who is going to demonstrate how to deliver a healthier society?

Michael Moore was an independent member of the ACT Legislative Assembly (1989 to 2001) and was minister for health. He is CEO of the Public Health Association of Australia.