Page 5258 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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stand up for the people of Tuggeranong either. They are the people who will be affected by the absence of the requirement for people to participate in reasonable quality assurance activities. This Minister has folded in the face of the powerful amongst the medical practitioners in this town. I am not talking about the GPs; I am talking about the powerful medical practitioners in this town. They have leant on Minister Humphries, and he has folded immediately.
But, of course, this person would not fold when it came to 46,000 people signing a petition to save a hospital and a public hospital service, and he would not fold when people complained about their school system.
Mr Kaine: Because he can live with reality, which is something you do not know anything about.
MR BERRY: According to the Chief Minister, reality is about being leant on by a few powerful doctors and collapsing in front of them.
MR MOORE (8.11): I do not know that I need such an emotive approach as Mr Berry's, but in this particular instance he is actually correct.
Mr Kaine: We are listening to a logical debate, Michael.
MR MOORE: Thank you, Chief Minister. He is actually quite correct and the proposals to remove this series of clauses are really entirely inappropriate. If we go back to the arguments that the Minister for Health was using just a short while ago when we were talking about quality assurance and the committees, and if we apply exactly the same arguments here, then it is appropriate that these clauses be retained.
What we have is a situation where we have to have our hospitals registered to standard, and we need to reach and make sure that we have quality assurance. It is as simple as that; it is straightforward. The doctors that have approached you have for a long time already had their opportunity to get there, and they have not got there. In producing this Bill and this board you have actually given yourself the tool to be able to ensure that you can. And now you are about to take the teeth out of it. It is the wrong way to go about it. I urge you to reconsider these proposals and, in fact, to retain the clauses, which is the logical thing to do.
What you need is the ability for the board to keep control of the consultant staff, to be able to have access to the records, and to be able to control them. By doing this you are removing the control for what you say is a much more reasonable approach. And that I agree with. However, you can leave this in here and the board can judge when it has a reasonable approach, but it will always have the tool sitting there in case it should need it. Leave the tool. Do not take the tool out. Leave it there. Encourage them.
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