Page 1788 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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Mr Connolly made some reference to the history of problems in Health. As far as he went he was fairly accurate. What he failed to mention was that the problem has come back fairly forcibly in the last few years. The problems that he identified in the course of his speech have been well identified, not just in this latest Andersen report but over a number of years through a number of processes. The issues which this report has identified are not in a sense completely new, yet we seem to still have emanating from Ministers in the Labor Government this view that, "It is only a matter of working out what the problem is and we can deal with it". With respect, we have had plenty of time to deal with the problem.
There was a budget blow-out in 1989 only a few months after the ACT achieved self-government. Mr Berry, as the first Minister for Health in the Territory, inherited a situation which, with respect, he probably had relatively little chance to control. The Government, not surprisingly, found itself in a situation where there had to be a serious examination of the problems with health finances only a few months after the formation of the Government. The Government fell in December 1989 and the recommendations that had been made by a working party set up by Mr Berry were picked up, identified and examined by the incoming Government. All of the issues, all of the points that were made by that report to the incoming Government, were implemented. Every single item in that report was implemented.
It was not surprising that in the ensuing 12 months after the new Government came into office there were no questions by the Labor Opposition, as it then was, about what was happening in health financing and health administration. In fact, there were no questions about health budgets. The first of those questions that did eventually arrive did not arrive until 19 February 1991. I checked the Hansard today. It appeared that the Labor Opposition - I assume this from the fact that they asked no questions about the matter - was content with the course of Health's finances for the full first year of the Alliance Government's operation.
On 19 February there was a question asked about Health's finances. A few days later the Liberal Government announced an inquiry into the finances of the health system and into reports of a budget overrun. That report led in turn to both the Enfield report and the Hirth report, two important documents among those that Mr Connolly referred to - the five-and-a-half pages of reports into health administration. We have some cause for saying that the issues have bubbled up at different times and have been variously identified and acted upon by governments. I think it is fair to say that the Alliance Government found itself surprised and dismayed even by the fact that a problem that we thought we had licked had come back to haunt us - the question of health budgeting and health finances. Those reports were put in place and the end-of-year outcome was greatly improved upon. Mr Connolly quoted the part-year figure. I point out to Mr Connolly that his predecessor, Mr Berry, made a great deal of the fact that part-year outcomes are not the outcomes you look at. It is the end-of-year outcome that really matters. The budget blow-out that might have occurred was very different from the one that occurred in terms of the final end-of-year outcome. However, there was still a problem.
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