Page 5121 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
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for its complaints unit, you will find it. Guess where you will find it - you will find it under the same number as the public relations unit.
Mrs Grassby: What a joke.
MR BERRY: That is a bit of a joke in anybody's language.
Mr Humphries: Where was it under you, Mr Berry?
MR BERRY: What Labor was going to do, in contrast to what this Minister has done, was to put in place a process where the community would be able to influence the policies of the Minister before they became a matter of fact. Not in any way would the Labor Party have been cast in the same mould as this Government.
Of course, all the Minister would have to do, if he wants to know what the Labor Party would do about this, is to have a look at Labor Party policy. It clearly sets out that the Labor Party would move to a complaints unit by legislation, with a legislative base. That is all he would have to do if he wants to know how the Labor Party would do it. I can guarantee that that would have been the result, and that is what the Labor Party in opposition in this place will set out to do in the course of this debate.
That is a very important process which will be pursued, as I have said, in the course of this debate. It is a detailed proposal that we have put in the form of amendments to this legislation and we will pursue that vigorously to ensure that the people of the ACT are able to complain and to get service which is quite separate to that provided by the management of a hospital system. It will ensure that their complaints are adequately addressed and decided upon by a body with quasi-judicial powers.
The council, of course, will have powers to receive and investigate complaints about any service provided in a health facility, and the council will have the power to conduct investigations and so on, and it will have the power to determine any such matter. That is very important, because the complaints unit as it now stands does not have any powers that I can find out about, except that it seems to report to the public relations unit to ensure that the hospital system is not criticised as a result of any complaints.
In my view, Mr Speaker, that is inadequate, and it is a great pity that the Minister has not moved to do something about that, because I am sure that he has had a number of complaints about the services which are provided in the hospital system. The fact of the matter is that it was shown in a recent survey that people will not complain to the complaints unit because clearly they do not trust it because it is too close to management. What Labor would set out to do, of course, is to ensure that there is a trustworthy complaints arrangement established under legislation.
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