Page 1540 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 17 May 1994
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were not in place to allow the Government to know what was going on with the funding of health. We have been open about this, Madam Speaker. We have tabled the report of Arthur Andersen. We have gone out to some of the best advice that you can buy in the private sector, the sector much vaunted by the Liberal Party, and we have indicated that we are going to roll our sleeves up and get on with the job of improving our financial control in ACT Health so that we can improve the delivery of services to the Canberra community.
There have been some problems with financial control of ACT Health that have resulted in fewer beds being available at the moment than there should be. The Government has made no secret of that. We are, however, saying that we are going to get on with the task of improving ACT Health with constructive approaches to the problem, not with carping and whingeing and glorying in the problem, which is all that the Liberal Party seem capable of doing, despite their self-serving rhetoric to the contrary.
MRS CARNELL: I ask a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Minister, to quote your own report, separations in the March quarter 1994 were 456 fewer than in the same period the previous year. That is with the normal Christmas shutdown. Is it not true, Minister, that elective surgery was reduced in the March quarter because your Government made a cynical decision to extend the Christmas closure period and not to reopen 56 beds which were closed before Christmas as a cost cutting exercise without any regard to the impact that this decision was going to have on people waiting for surgery?
MR CONNOLLY: Whinge, whinge, carp, carp! I am sorry, Mrs Carnell, but I have beaten you to the press release, because I announced some weeks ago that some 50 beds had been closed at Christmas and remained closed, and I announced to the Canberra community that it would be a top priority to fix this problem. You have a grin like a Cheshire cat saying, "Is this not wonderful? I have discovered something wrong in Health". We are quite frank with the ACT community. We have said, "We as a community have a problem with ACT Health". No government, Madam Speaker, has been able to turn that around yet, but this Government is rolling up its sleeves. We have a plan which we have - - -
Mrs Carnell: Have you opened the beds?
MR CONNOLLY: Have we opened them yet? No, I have not yet, Madam Speaker, but I indicate - - -
Mrs Carnell: Why?
MR CONNOLLY: Because, Mrs Carnell, unlike you, I do not have a money tree in my backyard. You say, "Why does he not build another hospital?". You offered that gem of wisdom to one of the television stations last week. Good idea! Apart from that, I think the most constructive suggestion you have made was when in this place one day you said to Mr Berry, "Look, there is no problem that money cannot fix. Throw money at the problem". Madam Speaker, what Arthur Andersen showed us above all else was that throwing money at the problem has not solved the problem.
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