Page 2654 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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sure Mr Kaine is wincing now, but there are a number of alternatives available to the Assembly. The Assembly is very concerned about a budget blow-out that may be running at the rate of $2.5m a quarter.
It is not a question of indulging in the personalities of the board. I accept, as I am sure my colleagues in the Rally accept, that this interim board was appointed by the former Minister, Mr Holding. We know that the relationship between the local Labor Party and Mr Holding in some of its respects has not been harmonious and there may be some Labor Party - Federal and territorial - interplay. Whatever that is, the Territory should not suffer. Whatever the inhibitions the present Minister has about moving decisively to deal with the board, it is to come to an end in about six weeks anyway, and surely by now we should know what is happening regardless of the budget blow-out. Even if we did not know - and it appears that the Liberal Party got wind before the Rally about the budget blow-out - we would still be asking you at some stage in this sitting or next week what you are doing about the future of the board.
I do not think this is all Liberal game playing. I think the rest of us in the Assembly would be interested to know whether the Minister is to reappoint the board as it stands or appoint another board. Dr Kinloch and I have made clear to the Minister that we do not support the advisory structure. Therefore, I doubt that you have got the numbers on the issue anyway and you need to move quickly on the board. The Minister may well be doing that, and he may well have an ethical problem because he has not got answers back from potential nominees. I do not know, but what I do know is, from a leaked document, that on 18 October 1989 a preliminary working budget was drawn up by persons unknown to me - it appears to be genuine - for 1989-90, for the Royal Canberra Hospital, and it says by program what the budget allocation is and what the monthly savings are required to be.
This was 18 October and it appears to have been set forth in some aura of either urgency or panic because in the administration area where the target budget allocation was $1.461m, there were requests to save $2,000 a month. It is amazing how the bureaucrats are the least hit in some of these games. In the cleaning area, which has a $1.668m target allocation for this financial year, there was this target of $29,000 a month to be saved somehow. It goes on and on. In the wardsman area, where there is a budget of $736,000 a year, $2,300 has to be saved. In the area of food services, where there is a budget of $4.694m targeted, the document says that each month you had to save $156,000. This looks like a drastic pruning or a drastic economy measure in-house or in the department. I do not know. I cannot assess the genuineness of all the documents that are flying off every truck that runs past the Assembly parties at the moment.
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