Page 4994 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES: You have a chance to answer this question now. I do not mind being cruel, Mr Berry. I have been inured to that by 18 months or two years in this Assembly. Mr Speaker, I ask the Minister to tell us whether he has yet received those figures and, if so, when we can expect to see them in this Assembly. He did say that he was going to get them by the 10th of each month. He then changed that to the middle of the month. He then changed that to about the 20th of the month. It is now the 27th.
I assume that the Minister, if he can at least say to us that he has not received them, will at least express some concern about the fact that those figures are late, will show us at least an inclination to be forthcoming to the Assembly about what is going on in this health bureaucracy and this Board of Health budget. It is incumbent on him to make sure that he does not have to come and face the cameras outside this Assembly, shamefaced, to say, "Look, we have a big problem and I have not told anybody about it until now". That is pretty unacceptable, in my view, and reflects very badly on the Minister.
I invite him to express some view about the state of play in the health budget beyond the platitudes we have heard so far, which have been simply, "I have confidence in the Board of Health to deliver a budget". That is just not good enough. We need to know more; he needs to know more as the Minister. He should be asking hard questions as Minister. If he is asking hard questions and getting answers, he should be able to communicate those to this Assembly.
MRS NOLAN (11.46): Mr Speaker, very briefly, I have to agree with Mr Humphries that there is no doubt that health at the moment is a real disaster area. As Mr Humphries said, it certainly is a matter of great regret. In my view, a lot of it has to do with fast-tracking of the principal hospital. I entirely support the principal hospital system; but I do not believe that, with the speed at which it has been done to date, it will really achieve anything other than chaos in the hospital services. That is certainly what we are seeing at the moment. There is a very real concern among people out there in the community about getting sick.
Mr Berry: No, not true.
MRS NOLAN: Mr Berry, you go out and talk to people and you will hear that over and over again. People are concerned. Some of the stories that one is hearing about the accident and emergency services at Woden, in particular, show that it really is a quite major concern. I will not go on at length at this time of night. As was mentioned a little while ago, it is 11.45 pm. But I do urge that the Minister provide us with those figures. It was undertaken some days ago. We ask urgently that all members of the Assembly are able to see the October figures.
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