Page 71 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 7 April 1992
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The Government is sending out confusing signals. On one hand, the Chief Minister has outlined her jobs priority, but this statement is undermined by the Government's response to the Gungahlin project and by its intention to return land servicing and development to the position of a government monopoly. Significant investment in this town will not be forthcoming unless the Government adopts a less equivocal approach. We must support the private sector.
Now let me turn to the subject of health provision. I believe that both major parties are strongly committed to public provision of health care in the ACT. The difference between the political parties lies in the Labor Party's preparedness to let resources remain underutilised. It is an attitude we cannot afford. The ACT is suffering from fiscal stress and will continue to do so as Commonwealth grants decline. This will restrict the Government's ability to provide services. Indeed, we are already seeing a situation where hospital bed numbers are being manipulated and where wards are being temporarily closed in school holidays in an attempt to meet the Government's budget imperatives.
We must begin to harness the skills and the energies of the private sector in the drive to improve health outcomes in Canberra. Not only is it wasteful not to use and involve the private sector; it is also philosophically wrong. It is not up to the Minister to make a high-handed "public interest" judgment on whether a new private hospital can or cannot be built in Canberra. The fact is that there are a number of companies interested in providing a new private hospital for Canberra. They evidently believe that, despite all the adversity and despite the hostile business environment engendered by the Federal Government's health policies, a private hospital for Canberra is a viable business proposition.
Again, we cannot afford to adopt an equivocal attitude towards private sector development in Canberra. If we wish to have private sector development we must be prepared to embrace it in all areas, including health. I believe that the approach towards the provision of health services must be outcomes orientated. We should concentrate on actually improving the health of people in Canberra - not shoving them out of hospital more quickly, as the Minister indicated this afternoon. We will best be able to do so if we maintain a flexible approach. There should be no prior commitments to particular institutions or particular means of delivery. Such attitudes will only conflict with the optimal provision of health services.
We should be prepared to question the efficiency of existing arrangements; for instance, the efficiency of having salaried practitioners within our suburban health centres. This is a relic of the pre-Medicare days of health delivery. In those days salaried medical practitioners were a very important way of providing for the medical needs of the less well-off members of the community. Since the advent of Medicare, those people can obtain free medical treatment from private doctors who bulk bill or, for a nominal cost, from those who do not; yet this Government continues to spend more than a million dollars of scarce resources when this cost could easily be transferred to the Commonwealth.
When I say "private sector", I would like to emphasise that this includes the for-profit, the not-for-profit and the voluntary sectors. I do not believe that health should be a government monopoly, alienated from the people. I think we should seek to involve all organisations in the provision of health services, firstly, because I think it makes the government's task much easier and, secondly,
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