Page 3284 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 November 1992
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Mr Kaine: All he has to do is call and they would give him the information.
MRS CARNELL: That is right. I think probably that is what Keith Wilson did. What is clear is that Mr Berry should not be rushing in and signing Brian Howe's agreement just because he thinks it is the ideologically correct thing to do. First he must do some hard-headed analysis of what the real cost to the ACT will be.
I have not even mentioned the negative effects the proposed agreement will have on discouraging private health insurance and the fact that there is no compensation whatsoever for that. By the way, this cost the ACT over $2m last year. The New South Wales study does not even take the reduction in private health insurance into consideration. It simply shows that, on the basis of the way the money is distributed, the ACT will lose, and lose heavily. The private health consideration is important. The fact that private funding receives a further setback under the agreement means that the ACT will lose even more, will be even more badly off than the New South Wales analysis envisages.
We can already see the detrimental changes in patient mix occurring under Federal and local Labor governments. Locally, the number of private patients treated in the public hospital system has fallen from 35 per cent to 32.7 per cent when the ACT budget was announced, and now it has fallen further. The September quarter activity report shows that this figure is now 29.5 per cent. This is a very dangerous development. It means that the ACT is getting less and less revenue from in-patient fees. It means less revenue for our hospital system. It means less local revenue at a time when we in the ACT are trying to be more self-sufficient. It means less money to spend on public patients. It means fewer health services for Canberrans. It has meant, and will mean again this financial year, that the ACT Treasury may have to provide budget supplementation for Health. It is a totally negative trend for all concerned. Yet the amazing thing is that Mr Berry wants to encourage more of it.
At the recent Australian Hospitals Association conference, the vast majority of those present - who, by the way, were predominantly senior administrators from public hospitals - believed that private health insurance must be encouraged.
Mr Berry: Not from the ACT, though.
MRS CARNELL: There was someone there from the ACT.
Mr Berry: Not there as a representative of ACT Health.
MRS CARNELL: There was someone there from the ACT. In fact, they did not say that just private health insurance must be encouraged; they said that it was absolutely essential for the ongoing development of public hospitals in Australia.
Mr De Domenico: These are the experts?
MRS CARNELL: The people who actually do it in the field. What current Labor policy means is the creation of a two-tiered health system. It means a system where the rich get easy access to health care, yet pensioners and the poor end up at the backside of waiting lists.
Mr De Domenico: That is called social justice.
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