Page 4106 - Week 15 - Thursday, 17 December 1992
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MRS CARNELL: I seek leave to table the Budget Overview, September Quarter.
Leave granted.
MRS CARNELL: I am sure that everyone has a copy. It is just for everyone's information. The recent financial information I have is page one, which I have just tabled, of the September quarter report. Contrary to the Minister's statement, page one contains no figures whatsoever, except an incorrect figure on the vertical axis of the graph. The financial data presented on that page of the activity report amounted to one small graph which attempted to show changes in net expenditure. It is impossible to make any accurate measurements using this graph.
From the information presented, ACT Health may have been anywhere from 5 to 10 per cent over budget at this stage of the year, but then again it is fairly hard to tell. You would need a very good millimetre ruler just to have any vague idea. No definite facts or figures were presented. One might conclude that the Minister's real motivation was to disguise the extent to which Health was over budget. In relation to this matter the Minister also said last week, in his answer to Mr De Domenico, that he had told us, "For this time of year expenditure in Health is predictably higher than at other times". But this is categorically not the case and, whether inadvertently or deliberately, Mr Berry is providing misleading information to this Assembly.
In this matter I can only draw attention to the facts and let the members of the Assembly draw their own conclusions about the veracity of Mr Berry's statements. I have already tabled financial information for November 1991 before this Assembly. It shows, in contrast to what Mr Berry said, that year to date expenditure was 2 per cent below predicted expenditure at this time last year. I point out to the Assembly that last year was the first time that we actually had information on a quarterly or monthly basis to compare information with.
It is just not appropriate for Mr Berry to say that it is unusual for expenditure at this time of the year to be higher than normal, because certainly, from last year's data, this is not the case. In any case, Mr Berry has certainly made it hard to know the extent of the current budget situation. Of course, it is simply not appropriate for governments to stop providing information just because it may not look good. What Mr Berry should understand is that activity reports were never intended to be just pretty pieces of public relations. It was never intended that information be presented only when it is favourable, and withheld when it does not paint such a pretty picture. These reports were meant to be an honest appraisal and to stimulate honest and informed debate.
Mr Berry: How would you know? They were my idea. How would you know?
MRS CARNELL: I assume that if they were your idea you would agree that they were supposed to stimulate honest, informed debate. The information they contain is supposed to be useful, to help us to develop attitudes and policies, to help us to know which areas of ACT Health are performing well and those areas in which more has to be achieved. Instead, in September we got a report that most people regard as an affront. The media and all people with an interest in the health system regard the financial information provided in the September quarter report as an insult to their intelligence. The financial information in the report was of a "put up or shut up" type. It was a good example of the bureaucratic and ministerial superiority complex that we see in action in this Assembly.
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