Page 4050 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 24 November 1993
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your public servants to do. What has it achieved? You have achieved a situation where people are being flown out of this city every day. The Minister has not followed his own contractual obligations. The Minister has not been present at meetings. In any other circumstance, you would have a situation where the midnight oil was being burnt by the Minister and the other people involved to try to come up with a solution.
Madam Speaker, I will say it again: The Liberal Party is not about maintaining VMOs' fees at an unrealistically high rate. We believe that quality medicine in the ACT means that our VMOs' fees should mirror those of New South Wales.
Mr Connolly: So they should be reduced?
MRS CARNELL: Yes, I have always said that. I have said it in print.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (11.07): Mrs Carnell tries to rewrite history again and to create her version of it. I read a paragraph of a letter I wrote to the AMA on 20 November:
If your members are prepared to sign the contracts I will ensure the discussions continue on those matters outside the core elements on which the rate of $132 per hour depends. I guarantee that agreed outcomes from those discussions will apply where applicable from the date on which the contracts are signed. Similar dispute settling mechanisms to those set out in the contracts could be developed to deal with disputed matters.
So there is plenty of movement from the Government. From the Liberals, we saw this on 27 March:
The Liberal spokeswoman on health, Kate Carnell, gave qualified support to Mr Berry, saying the NSW decision should have a bearing -
she is walking out now; she does not like the medicine -
on the local contract deliberations.
"You can't have your cake and eat it too", said Mrs Carnell.
What we did then was to make sure that the interest of the AMA was tested on the New South Wales decision. They do not want it. Meetings commenced in about June this year, and there have been lots of them. There was a working party process developed in order that we could look at all of the rates around Australia, in conjunction with the AMA. That working party developed a range of figures, but it soon became apparent that the AMA was not going to move from its previous position, that is, the highest rates in Australia.
In order to keep the hospital system open, I developed a proposal which was based on national rates, that is, $100 an hour for sessional payments, adoption of the MBS schedule, and a guarantee that if the negotiation process delivered something different it would be given to the doctors and back paid to the date of the contract. I guaranteed it. I also said that an arbitration process was an appropriate course. Throughout those negotiations doctors have been offered
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