Page 1803 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 1 May 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
age categories in those situations. The fee increases result from an increase in the standard rate of the pension and rental assistance paid by the Department of Social Security, which were also due to increase on 28 March, which I think is the date on which this determination was to have effect.
Those were the determinations made. They were fairly innocuous ones. Nothing that Mr Berry said touched on the relevance or the inapplicability of those particular increases in fees and charges; so I take it that he has no argument with the actual substance of the increases themselves. He would not argue against the proposition that if I, for example, were to make that determination it would be a fair and appropriate determination which would not be subject to any disallowance motion.
In the course of his rather jumbled and confused statement on the matter in the Assembly, he said eventually that, in light of the announcement I had made previously in the Assembly on 12 March about the powers that Mr Bissett was to exercise in the interim, given Mr Bissett's exercising of the financial powers of the Board of Health, there was a case to disallow that determination. I want to read what I said to the Assembly on 12 March about the situation with respect to Mr Bissett. I announced on that date that I had appointed Mr Jim Service to take personal control of all hospital finances and that he proposed, subject to that appointment, to appoint a financial controller to assist him in this task and be responsible for handling all commitments and expenditure until the board is satisfied that the control can be returned to line managers. "All commitments and expenditure" were the words I used. I think it is hard to construe that, Mr Speaker, as touching on commitments made by the board in another way.
Mr Bissett clearly had authority to exercise other powers, and he did, and those are quite clear from the situation as outlined. It was a revenue raising power he exercised, not an expenditure power. That is where the situation stands. It is very simple, Mr Speaker, and I think - - -
Ms Follett: Did you let the Law Office look at this?
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes. I think, Mr Speaker, it is very clearly summarised in that statement. I think Mr Berry's claims are unsubstantiated. They quite clearly stand up as not being powers to control finance, but powers to set revenue for the health services.
MR CONNOLLY (11.16): Mr Speaker, this is a fairly significant debate because it is the first time that this Assembly has exercised its important power to challenge delegated legislation. On the last private members' day of sitting we actually strengthened this Assembly's powers to scrutinise delegated legislation.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .