Page 3100 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 November 1992
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MRS CARNELL: Do you mean that you did not say what you are reported in the press as saying? According to the media, he has charged the Estimates Committee with becoming politicised. What a farce, coming from someone who is such an expert at that sort of thing! The insights provided by this report are indeed hard hitting. Unfortunately, Mr Berry appears not to like that; but the Estimates Committee does not exist to mollycoddle Mr Berry or, for that matter, any other government Minister. The report did not shirk from criticism where criticism was necessary, and that certainly was not everywhere. There were lots of areas where the Estimates Committee did not criticise Ministers or did not criticise the process.
This report makes some very sound and very constructive criticisms, and Mr Berry should pay heed if he wants to lift his game and do a better job, which I am confident he does. Paragraph 3.47 of the report notes:
An accurate picture of the total number of staff employed in the ACT Government Service was difficult to determine as the information provided to the Committee across a range of documents was inconsistent and used different methodologies to calculate staffing numbers.
I could not agree more and, in fact, ACT Health is a very good case in point. Let us look at the mess in this particular area. Page 116 of the recent annual management report of ACT Health says that there are 5,095 people on the Health payroll. Apparently, this includes people in other ACT government agencies. On the opposite page, the personnel services productivity increase graph shows that there are 5,120 on the payroll. The figures for pay 26 in the estimates explanatory notes show that there are 5,723 staff in Health, or 4,822 if you exclude Calvary.
Mr De Domenico: So, there is a contradiction?
MRS CARNELL: We have not finished with all these strange numbers. Page 145 of the 1991-92 annual management report says that there were 4,831 staff in ACT Health as at 30 June. Again, that is a figure which probably excludes Calvary. So, there we have all sorts of different figures in all sorts of different areas. It is totally impossible to make any comparisons because some sets of figures are broken down into full- and part-time categories, whereas others are recorded in full-time equivalents. Basically, the way staff information has been recorded is a mess. The Government has to present staffing information more consistently and comprehensively if it wants to be called an open government and if it is to gain any credibility in this particular area.
Another concern was the fact that we did not have the 1991-92 annual management report for Health before us at the Estimates Committee hearing. As the Estimates Committee report notes in paragraph 2.41, it was the only ACT agency that did not have its draft annual report ready in time for estimates.
Mr Berry: But it had it ready on time.
MRS CARNELL: Not for estimates, though. Mr Humphries has already made some comments about HIV/AIDS notification. The Estimates Committee also revealed the glaring discrepancy between what the Minister had been saying on HIV notification and what his advisers at the Estimates Committee said. Mr Berry has for months been trying to justify notifying HIV in a way different
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