Page 1437 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 26 September 1989
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dispute that we desperately need to put behind us. I want to refer briefly in this respect to what the Kearney report has to say about industrial relations in the health system. Dr Kearney said:
It is evident that marked and urgent improvements in both management/staff relations and industrial relations are required if the community of the ACT and the surrounding districts is to have the highest quality, cost-effective patient care.
The report went on to say:
The past decade has witnessed a relatively high level of disputation within the ACT health industry, with some disputes impacting significantly on the availability of quality health care services to the community.
I will have more to say on that subject when we come to debate the report of the steering committee into the hospital redevelopment project.
Dr Kearney in particular referred in that earlier report to the very high incidence of disputation involving the Hospital Employees Federation. A table included in his report showed that the HEF had been involved in 71 disputes between January 1986 and November 1988. This compares with five for the Australian Nursing Federation, three for the Transport Workers Union, one for the ACT Medical Officers Association and none for the ACOA.
I congratulate those unions on their restraint - at least it certainly looks like restraint by comparison with what happened in the area of the HEF. On no fewer than three occasions the industrial action brought by the HEF has brought at least one of the major hospitals in this town to within 24 hours of closure.
I note that the Kearney report takes the trouble of quoting a decision of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in June last year. That decision dealt with a dispute again involving the HEF and the then Health Authority, and Justices Maddern and Boulton and Commissioner Maher indicated:
An examination of the industrial record of the HEF in the ACT discloses a most unsatisfactory position. In many cases, the ACT branch of the HEF has taken direct action to the detriment of the patients in the ACT health care system ... Furthermore, in two matters arising the HEF either failed to attend hearings and/or withdrew from proceedings in progress in the Commission.
To dwell on the record of the HEF would be to ignore progress that has been made in the area of union and management relations. I note that the Minister's statement
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