Page 5122 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
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Other matters will come up in the course of the detail stage debate on this issue, Mr Speaker; but one other matter which I would like to mention is the arrangements for the sale and purchase of goods by the hospitals board. The legislation allows the hospitals board to spend up to $1m without reference to the Minister. You will all recall the difficulties which members had in isolating the expenditure on consultants when that was pursued during the course of the estimates debate. Under the proposals that will be made in the amendments that I have put forward, all transactions for the sale or purchase of goods and services by and on behalf of the board in excess of $2,000 shall be advertised in the Gazette. Nothing that involves the expenditure of more than $2,000 will escape the net, because all services will be advertised and there will be no more of this selective appointment of consultants and contractors in the hospital system.
I will just give you an example of an incident that will not occur. When I was Minister a consultant offered to do a review of a certain process in the hospital system, and he offered to do it for nothing. I thought to myself, when I saw that, why would he do that? Why would he want to do it for nothing? I just could not work that out. Are all these generous people waiting out there to help the ACT hospital system? I soon found out. I soon found out that that person expected to get a major contract as a result. That is the sort of thing that would not happen under this process because it would have to be made public and properly made public so that the people of the ACT would know, to the largest degree possible, what is going on within their hospital system in relation to expenditure.
Mr Humphries: That is only $2,000; it is only $2,000, Wayne.
MR BERRY: Mr Humphries complains something about $2,000. There is a lot of difference between $2,000 and $1m. He might not know the difference, but I certainly do. I might be able to put my hand on a couple of thousand dollars, but I certainly cannot put my hands on $1m. The fact of the matter is - - -
Mr Humphries: And you never will in future either.
MR BERRY: I will not be able to do that with help from members of the Liberal Party, I can assure you, Mr Speaker. The fact of the matter is that this sets out to ensure that all of those contracts, and so on, are swept up in a net. Mr Deputy Speaker, I will have more to say in the detail stage of debate.
MR SPEAKER: I beg your pardon?
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