Page 5256 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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consultant's engagement on the ground of that failure". It goes on to talk about the consultant's engagement - there is a notice under that section - and so on.
Mr Humphries: Yes, we know that you can read, Wayne.
MR BERRY: Mr Humphries says that he knows that I can read. I am glad that he gives me the credit for something. I just wish that on occasions he would give me the credit for being awake to what he is on about in the public hospital system. What he is doing here is ensuring that there is nobody accountable to the board for the delivery of quality assurance activities. This is the Minister who just a moment ago was crowing about the requirement to ensure that there are quality assurance activities carried on within the hospital system. He was crowing about that in relation to Division 2, "Approved committees", concerning the admissibility of evidence and members not being compellable to produce evidence.
The fact of the matter is that he has done a complete 180 in just a few short clauses of this legislation. I think we have to get to the bottom of the reason for the Minister's turnabout, and it is because a number of powerful people amongst the medical practitioners have leant on him, and he has folded. It is a great pity that the Minister did not fold in the face of community opposition to what he was doing in the schools and with the closure of the Royal Canberra Hospital. It only takes a few powerful medicos in the community to lean on this Minister a bit and there is a complete collapse; he collapses like a pack of cards. It is absolutely disgusting.
The community will be appalled by this because it knows that one of the reasons why the Woden Valley Hospital, now known as the Royal Canberra Hospital South campus, does not have accreditation is the absence of acceptable quality assurance activities. What this legislation properly set out to do was to impose the requirement to participate on practitioners in the hospital system.
Mr Moore: They have not been able to achieve it up to now.
MR BERRY: They will not do it by themselves. Self-regulation will ensure that it will never happen. Unless there is regulation that requires the implementation of quality assurance practices, of course, it will never happen. You can see that the Liberal Party does not have quality assurance in its preselection process because it has picked candidates who do not have any concern about the delivery of quality services to the people of the ACT and put them up for election. But so much for the Liberal Party. Mr Deputy - no, Mr Speaker; I am still getting over that trauma of yesterday.
Mr Stefaniak: That must have really affected you.
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