Page 5391 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 3 December 1991
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MR BERRY: It is on the bottom.
Leave granted.
MR BERRY: I move:
That the resolution of the Assembly of 20 November 1991 relating to Ministerial responsibility be amended by omitting all words after "questions".
Members will recall the lively debate which took place in relation to this matter and how, at the time, I protested about the course which members decided upon. Subsequent to the decision of the Assembly, I have discussed the matter with Mr Service. It became clear to me that, to ensure that the relevant information was procured for the Assembly, a direction pursuant to subsection 6(3) of the Health Services Act would be required. That direction was issued.
As a result of that direction, the ACT Board of Health responded as one would expect them to, and they provided the figures. They responded - I quote from the letter from Mr Service which has been circulated to members - and expressed "dismay and astonishment at the debate in the Legislative Assembly, which has led to this Direction".
Mr Service no doubt would recall Mr Humphries' speech in December, I think it was, of 1990, where he acknowledged the need to keep government at arm's length from management in the establishment of that board. I suspect that Mr Service was suitably frustrated then to see that Mr Humphries would have adopted a different view in relation to this matter.
The board, as indicated in the letter which I have circulated, has the highest respect for this institution, and it will continue to have that respect. But they feel that they are being frustrated, it seems, and I am concerned about some mumblings about resignation which I think would be most unhelpful at a critical time in the development of health and hospital services in the ACT. I have raised that issue before. It is not an issue that one raises to warn members or to threaten members with; it is a matter of reality on which some members, or many members, are extremely concerned about what they feel is undue interference in the management processes.
Mr Service accurately recalls history when he talks about the Assembly legislating to establish the board and give it the powers under the Health Services Act which the board, of course, feels competent to deliver on; but they now feel that to call on them every four or five weeks to produce information that may be the subject of "acrimonious and politicised debate" is something which rightly concerns them.
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