By Sue Bull

CANBERRA -- When the Carnell Liberal government came to power in the February 1995 ACT elections, its main stated goal was to make the health system more "efficient" and "effective". It has now been revealed that there has been an estimated $14 million blow-out in the health budget.

To make matters worse for the government, some $5 million in uncollected revenue has been lost due to its confrontationist approach and costly handling of the continuing industrial dispute with government employees over wage increases.

The government now faces the humiliating prospect of being the only executive since 1989 self-government to seek two appropriation bills from the Legislative Assembly in the same year. The money to pay recurrent costs such as wages until the end of the year will need to be borrowed, making a mockery of Carnell's commitment to sound financial management.

Carnell has said that the shortfall is the result of poor performances in health and ACTION buses, but that these will be balanced by under-spending in other departments. This has alarmed those working in the "other" departments as most are already severely under-funded and incapable of making further unplanned savings.

Meanwhile, some 13 unions have now negotiated wage agreements with the government and the Australian Nurses Federation has reached a memorandum of understanding. However, the two biggest unions, the Community and Public Sector Union and the Australian Education Union are still to reach an agreement with the government and are maintaining their work bans.

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