Page 4109 - Week 15 - Thursday, 17 December 1992
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Mrs Carnell: But you told us that you were going to provide quarterly reports.
MR BERRY: Wait a minute. There was not one question about the detail, not one speck of interest in it. Now, the board decides on a particular course of action. Mrs Carnell does not like it, so the world falls in. Mr Moore and Mrs Carnell came up to my office. Mrs Carnell waved her proposed motion under my nose and Mr Moore said, "What do you think of this?". I said, "On the face of it, it looks all right to me. I will get it examined". I did that. I said, on the same day - - -
Mr Moore: That is correct.
Mrs Carnell: That is not quite what he said.
MR BERRY: No, no. I said, "On the face of it, it looks all right".
Mr Moore: Yes, but you would need to have your senior bureaucrats look at it.
MR BERRY: And I would need to have it examined. I said, "It seems all right to me", and I said roughly the same thing in the house immediately following.
I have had the thing examined and I have taken a whole lot of issues into account. The first and most important one is that it was the board's report and they produced it, in consultation with me too - - -
Mrs Carnell: The board knew exactly what was in it prior to it being printed?
MR BERRY: It is the board's report.
Mrs Carnell: It is lucky it is the last day of sitting.
MR BERRY: Do not threaten me. It is the board's report. Of course, I agreed to provide the extra information that was requested, or I asked the board to do it. They have not said that they will not do it, so I expect that it will be supplied. I think that is fair enough. Ask them to do it; let them. I am not going to write a direction to the board on every issue that is around the place. I have asked the board and there is no indication that they will not supply it. Now, what do you want to find out? You want to find out how Health is going. Well, there has been much fuss. As members of this Assembly you are entitled to, but I would like to see the same sort of interest in some of the other areas, or would you not have time to do that? Perhaps not. Not enough staff perhaps? This matter, of course, is one of considerable concern because of the disruption of a statutory board.
Mrs Carnell: The blow-outs.
MR BERRY: I said that you want to know how Health is going. I have never ever said anything else but that the Board of Health is spending at such a rate that, if it continues to the end of the year, it will end up spending more money than was provided for in the budget. We all know that. I have said that there are some management things that have to be examined to try to rein in that expenditure. It is a serious issue for all health systems. It is a serious one for us. I do not want a budget overrun of unapproved expenditure. They have to justify every dollar they spend. That is fine. But it makes it very difficult for the board to be dragged out in the open on these issues all the time. They are more or less volunteers, if you like, and they have some serious responsibilities.
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