Page 2576 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 15 November 1989
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To achieve expenditure reductions, I proposed measures totalling $2.9m in a full year based on better use of limited resources, improved productivity savings and better client outcomes. For 1989-90 they included the obstetrics early discharge program; the coordination of accrued days off, the savings from which were $250,000 for this year and $450,000 in a full year; hospital pharmacy rationalisation, $100,000; commercial cleaning standards at Royal Canberra Hospital, $50,000; consolidation of post-natal beds, $125,000 this year and $165,000 in a full year; suspension of enrolled nurse training, $130,000, and $170,000 in a full year; the ambulance subscription scheme, $200,000 this year and $550,000 in a full year; the two-hour shift overlap, $250,000, and $1m in a full year; and extension of the five-day surgical wards, $170,000, and $250,000 in a full year.
The budget consultative process - a very successful process which the Liberals walked away from, I might add - demonstrated strong concern about the potential impact of some measures on low income, mainly female employees. The two-hour nursing shift overlap, about which Mr Humphries bleats so much, along with other measures, is still on the agenda as part of the constructive negotiations - not the bull in the china shop approach which seems to be promoted by Mr Humphries - at a high level that are now taking place between the department, the Trades and Labour Council and other unions.
We have talked to the unions. We do not turn our backs on them and we do not attack their wages and conditions in the media. We conduct our negotiations with the trade union movement in a sensible industrial relations environment. That would be foreign for the Liberal Party, but it is something that the Labor Party has been able to base its successes on.
Mr Humphries: What successes?
MR BERRY: I have just read out quite a number. Meetings have been held regularly since 19 October and I expect this process to conclude soon. Other measures announced in the budget are being introduced progressively and savings will be achieved. It has been made clear that the bottom line will be achieved.
I turn to the hospital redevelopment. This Government inherited a public hospital system which required restructuring. Since we came to power, the major development needs of the public hospital system have been addressed. These decisions, as I have said on a number of occasions, will shape the future of the system into the year 2000 and beyond. That took a lot of hard, involved work on behalf of the Government. Of course it is a success for the Government and, while the opposition would not be particularly happy about it, I am sure it is entirely envious of it.
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