Page 1487 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 2021
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across a number of health services—I saw this recently at their roadshow—and the impressive way it has been implemented by different health services in different ways to suit their different needs and situations.
I also want to note the cooperative approach all the members of the culture reform oversight group have taken to continuing to participate in and commit to the ongoing work that we are doing together. I thank them for their ongoing commitment.
Through the changes we are implementing, we are striving to ensure that our staff feel valued, safe and supported in the important work they do for our community. I am confident the work we are doing will strengthen the mental health and wellbeing of our workforce and will therefore enhance the mental healthcare delivered to people in the ACT.
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (3.53): I thank the minister for her amendment and for notifying my office about this last night. The only disappointing thing in the amendment is that at point 1(e) it says that the recommendations will be addressed by 30 June 2022, which is over 400 days away. I understand there is a lot going on in health; I am not denigrating that fact. I just think that employees have a right to go to work in a safe environment, and that will then have been 1,200 days since the report to make the 20 recommendations come to fruition. I understand what the minister has said—they are complicated and deep, and big, and wide, and broad, but so are the problems that people are suffering from because they have been bullied in the health system.
I would have liked to have seen that we are coming to conclusion faster. I will continue to ask about this area because it matters a lot to me and to those who come to talk to me about their experiences in health. I very much want to see them going to work in a healthy environment, as I am sure the minister does, too. But we cannot know if we are getting to the bottom of the problem and if the implementation of the recommendations are having the required effect unless we measure it in a statistical, meaningful way. That is why I will move an amendment to the minister’s amendment requiring that we report on all the matters identified in (2).
The report came into the public domain stating there were inappropriate behaviours, bullying and harassment in the workplace; inefficient procedures and processes, including complaints handling; and inadequate training in dealing with inappropriate workplace practices—very basic things that we must have right in a big workforce like this; an inability to make timely decisions; poor leadership and management at many levels through the health system; and inefficient and inappropriate human resource practices.
I have thought to myself many times that if this damning list was a list given to a Liberal government, we would have been pilloried non-stop. But we have given the minister 800 days—.
Ms Stephen-Smith: I think you might find Minister Fitzharris was pilloried non-stop.
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