Page 2390 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 August 2022
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Mr Davis: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I am remiss to take a point of order. I will not hold the minister to specificity, but at least some date range would be useful. My question was specific: when can we expect the release of the report?
MADAM SPEAKER: There is no point of order. She is saying that there is a draft out soon and she is working with the community.
MS BERRY: We are looking at having a plan out by the end of the year. Of course, we want to make sure that we have a plan that has been appropriately consulted on with sports organisations, and we are going through that process right now.
MR BRADDOCK: Minister, will the plan cover existing infrastructure such as the Nicholls Enclosed Oval, which is in need of an upgrade?
MS BERRY: We are working that through with sports organisations, as we speak.
Canberra Health Services—workplace culture
MS CASTLEY: Thank you Madam Speaker. My question is to the Health Minister. In the 2019-2020 budget you allocated $12 million to improve the toxic culture at the Canberra Health Services, following a workplace review. Sadly the situation has not improved but worsened. The staff rating for CHS being a good place to work has gone backwards, from -6.2 to -16.5. Yesterday protesting nurses spoke about violence in the workplace and said bullying and harassment were rife. How will you guarantee $7.2 million in this budget will result in a safer culture, when you have already spent $12 million and conditions are worse?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: Thank you Madam Speaker. I thank Ms Castley for the question, but she is wrong. In workplace culture surveys over that period of time there has been an improvement in what we have seen, including particularly from nurses and midwives.
I will talk about Canberra Health Services because they all have different surveys. When you look at the nurses and midwives element of that culture survey, Canberra Health Services benchmarks are either in line with, or above, their charts for other nursing and midwifery workforces at other health systems across the country.
Now there are some challenges there, and occupational violence has been a particular challenge. This is why, over some years, we have been working with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation for the Towards a Safer Culture Strategy, and we invested $1.2 million in that in the 2019-20 budget.
In this budget we have tripled funding for the Towards a Safer Culture Strategy, continuing to work with the ANMF. This specifically addresses both issues of occupational violence and psychological safety, and to broaden that out, to nurse and midwife wellbeing, specifically responding to the recommendations and calls from the union.
I will give one more piece of evidence, Madam Speaker, that things have changed at Canberra Hospital. Everyone will recall in 2018 that during the accreditation process
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