Page 4018 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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The Government's budget strategy has the twin objectives of maximising the capacity to maintain services by focusing on gains in efficiency and cost-effectiveness and at the same time meeting urgent social justice objectives. This budget will assist the ACT to maintain its sound financial position while achieving these objectives. As I said earlier, the budget represents the second year of the three-year budget strategy which was introduced in 1992. The measures in the budget are consistent with the strategy and have been developed after extensive consultation with the community. This is a budget which responds to the single highest reduction in Commonwealth funding of any State or Territory. Madam Speaker, this is a responsible budget which avoids disruption but makes the adjustments essential for long-term budget restructuring.
In conclusion, I am very pleased that the Government has been able to respond positively to so many of the recommendations put forward by the committee - 36 out of the 40. Once again I would like to thank the members of the committee for their report, and I commend the Government's response to the report of the 1993 Estimates Committee on the Appropriation Bill 1993-94.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (10.05): The Chief Minister has just tabled the Government's response to the Estimates Committee report, and of course that is fully endorsed. However, as Minister for Health, I would like to make a few comments about the estimates process and some of the issues that were raised during the proceedings. Firstly, I want to say that the outcome of the process for the department is pleasing. In particular, the committee will agree that there has been a marked improvement in the content and quality of information provided in budget documentation. It was good before, but it is better now. I think Health's reporting of issues generally these days is outstanding compared with what I first experienced in 1989.
Mr Humphries: That is cold comfort when the system is hanging in ruins.
MR BERRY: This is the sort of hyperbole that the Liberals insist on using. Mr Humphries says, "The system is hanging in ruins". It is not. We have a problem with doctors' salaries because of your inaction, Mr Humphries. One issue mentioned in the course of the Estimates Committee proceedings was the issue of rosters. I said then that it was a sensitive industrial issue, and we are working through the problem. We will continue to work through the problem. What you ought to understand, if you have a look at the nurses' award, is that management has a right to make decisions about rosters. Sometimes employees disagree, but at the same time management has an obligation to act responsibly in accordance with awards and acceptable management practice.
Sometimes there is a resistance to change. Industrial relations, of course, involve some conflict in the workplace, and we have to work our way through it. There is a set of rules that the nurses have to comply with - the Industrial Relations Act. They are quite happy to comply with that Act and we are quite happy to work within it. But the doctors are a different matter. Your mates, Mrs Carnell, do not want to work with any rules. They just want to have their own way, stamp over everybody, hold a gun at the head, hold patients to ransom.
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