Page 4546 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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Health Budget - Monthly Reports
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, my question is also to the Minister for Health. Noting that we are nearly five months through the 1991-92 financial year, and knowing that the Minister is receiving monthly updates presumably on the health budget, even if the rest of us are not, I ask the Minister: How much money has been spent on health in the current financial year to date, and how much does this sum represent as a proportion of the total sum to be appropriated to health for 1991-92? Has the Minister yet decided whether he will share the monthly updates with the other members of the Assembly?
MR BERRY: It is timely that a member of the Liberal Party should raise something of this order, seeking to indicate that there is some concern about health in the ACT. That is more than his Federal colleagues seem to have. It seems that the future of health in the ACT is under something of a cloud because of what might happen with the consumption tax which is proposed and which will attack the people of the ACT.
On the issue of finances in our hospital system, nobody more than I has been concerned with the way that our financial management has degraded. That certainly occurred during the period of the Alliance Government. Mr Humphries yesterday raised the issue of whether he had done anything or done nothing in relation to financial management of the hospital system, and went to some pains to attempt to prove that he had in fact done something.
Mr Kaine: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. Are we again to be shown an example of evading the question?
MR SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.
MR BERRY: It is not a very good question either. The issue of the hospital budget is a sensitive one and it is one which I am keeping my eye on very closely. I am informed of matters which are of concern in the hospital system, and for the first time in the life of this Assembly monthly reports from the Board of Health were shared with members of this Assembly. That was a sign of good faith, to indicate to members and to the community that this Government is about ensuring that budgets set by government are adhered to.
At the same time, Mr Speaker, we have to accept, as an Assembly, that it was this Assembly that appointed the Board of Health to manage our hospital system. No other instrumentality in the ACT is required to submit monthly reports to this Assembly to show how it is coping with its yearly budget, and no other instrumentality in the ACT has been the subject of so much political interest. I say to you, Mr Speaker, that it has been expressed to me on a
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