Page 2659 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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report, that does not mean that it has to have the A-1 seal of approval from me or from anyone else for that matter. I am not all that sure that a board of management, as Mr Collaery has maintained, is the most appropriate form of hospital administration. We have had boards of management and it seems to me that the hospitals have been getting progressively worse and worse, if you listen to the publicity that is generated about the health system.
Accordingly, I decline to support the motion that the Assembly has full confidence in the hospital interim board of directors, but I want to make it perfectly clear that in so doing I in no way imply any wrongdoing or lack of confidence in the hospital interim board of directors. I regard this as a political motion put by the Liberal Party for the simple purpose of gaining kudos and undoubtedly press headlines. Accordingly, I shall not be supporting it.
DR KINLOCH (3.42): Mr Speaker, on behalf of the Rally may I re-emphasise our worries about advisory boards, especially multiple boards. I would be worried about any kind of advisory board with no power but, when you have multiple groups all advising to one point, then I have a very great concern that things can go wrong. I have seen this in the educational sphere.
I join Mr Moore, Mr Duby, Mr Humphries and others in supporting the interim board in what it has been doing. We do not know the details but, all things considered, we are supporting that board. The Rally wants to see the effective integration of a range of concerns - child-care, respite care, hospice, community health, convalescent care - as much as possible. That is not to say that every single thing must be under one board. There could be representatives of some of these groups on the central board.
I also agree with Mr Duby that the Kearney report is not holy writ. I would like to recognise Mr Moore's helpful contributions, by the way, to the Rally in bringing us to our own policy on health in this matter. I now ask that we support the motion.
MR STEFANIAK (3.43): Mr Speaker, I will be fairly brief. I was very pleased to see, after a fair bit of controversy when this interim board was established and some further controversy, that we do appear to have a hospital interim board of directors from a wide range of people representing a wide range of interests relevant to the management of the hospital that is prepared to make hard decisions within the board of management and make sensible and responsible recommendations as a result of that. I think we are very lucky in the calibre of this interim hospital board and indeed the strength of character it has shown. That board certainly deserves the support of the Assembly, as recommended by Mr Humphries. Also, the Kearney report was a long-awaited document. It had a lot of input. Indeed
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